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SURVIVALS IN BELIEF AMONG

THE CELTS

PUBLISHED BY

JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW,
|3ublishers to the anitoersiijj.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

New York, - • The Macmillan Co.

Toronto, • • • Th: MacmHlan Co. of Canada.

London, • • - Simpkin, Hamilton and Co.

Cambridge, - - Bowes and Bowes.

Edinburgh, - • Douglas and Foulis.

Sydney, • • ■ Angus and Robertson.

MCMXI.

SURVIVALS IN BELIEF
AMONG THE CELTS

BY \

GEORGE HENDERSON

M.A.(Edin.), B.Litt.(Oxon.), Ph.D.(Vienna)

LECTURER IN CELTIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
AUTHOR OF "THE NORSE INFLUENCE ON CELTIC SCOTLAND"

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GLASGOW
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS

PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY
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PREFACE.

This volume gives the substance of my first series
of public lectures in Folk- Psychology delivered in
the University of Glasgow.

The treatment is objective in the sense that there
is throughout a unifying thought. Though I cite
widely it is not a mere collection of folk-belief : it is
a history of soul-belief, over a given area, treated in
a comparative light. That the contents are taken
from our own land does not lessen its interest. I
use the term Celtic as a linguistic convenience, not as
racial : the bulk of the material is from among the
Gadhelic-speaking area, where I was naturally able
to draw upon my own knowledge of facts which
awoke in me an early curiosity.

I am again beholden to the Carnegie Trust for
their help by a grant in aid of publication, for
which I offer my grateful thanks.

The University,
Glasgow, May, 191 1.

261461

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

(or The Internal Soul)

PAGE

Survivals Defined - - - i, 5

A Possible non-Celtic Element - 3

Religion and Rite 5

Religion embraces a Special Carefulness ; is the opposite

of Negligence ; and of a Social Nature - 8

\ Celtic Religious Psychology - - - - - 9

Religion embraces more than Magic - - - - 10

The Spoken Word n

The Spell - 13

The Positive Word - - 15

Magic Charm : bricht (the Ceremonially Conceived Word) 1 7

The Power of the Word - - - -..-."■- - - 18

The Soul in the Name - 19

Asseveration by the Tribal God - 20

The Soul and Body-Parts : Oath by the Elements - 21

Ancient Ritual of the After-Birth - - - - - 23

The Soul in the Eye - 25

Averting the Evil Eye - - - - - - - 27

The Blood-Soul - - - - -- - - 29

Blood-Drinking - - - - - - - - 3°5 31

The Blood-Covenant - - - 32

viii CONTENTS

PAGE

The Soul in the Blood ----- - 40

The Soul in the Breath - - 45, 49

The 'Double'- -------- 47

The Self as different from the Body - - - 48

Chief Forms of Soul-Cult

1. Animism - - - - - - - - 51

2. Animalism and Manism - - - - - 52

3. Daimonism ------- ^6

Gessa, i.e. Restrictions or Taboos - - - - - 57

Raising the Name -------- 58

Faint ' Survival5 of Simulative Couvade - 59

Brian and the Virgin Birth : Parthenogenesis - 65

The Dusii of Gaul : the Breton Courils - - - - 73

Varieties of Supernatural Birth- 74

Life-Tokens - - - - - - - - - 75

CHAPTER II. THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE
(or The External Soul)

The External Soul - - - - - - - - 76

Swearing by Weapons - 77

Swearing by the Hand - - - - - - - 78

The Soul-Form as Moth, Butterfly - - - - - 79

The Bee-Soul --------- 83

The Bird-Soul

Cuckoo -------- 89

Cormorant 90

Raven, Magpie, Eagle 91

Swan - - - 92

Ghost-Bird of St. Kilda 92

Wren ---96

Heron - - - - - - - - - 98

Crane and Gull 99

Language of Animals 99

Sacred Animals - 100, 10 1

Animal-Fasting 101

CONTENTS ix

PAGE

The Theriomorphic Soul

{a) Hare-Form

[02

(b) Cat-Form

I07

IO9

Clan Leod and the Horse

117

More na Maighe

119

(d) Fowl Taboo or Sacred -

121

Sacredness and Potency of Swine's Blood

121

(e) Deer-Form

121,

I31

Oisin's Animal Parentage

123,

127

The White Hind as Fairy Love

125

Names of Animal Origin

129

(/) Bull-Form

133

(a) The Boobrie as Bird -

135

(b) The Boobrie as Water-Horse

137,

143

138

The Bittern -

144

Water-Bull -

147

The Gaulish Tarvos Trigaranos -

I48

The Divine Bull

i49>

152

Water- Wraith and Nymphs -

149,

15°

The Bull on the Paris Altar

"53

The Bull of Treves -

155

The Donn Cualnge -

158

An Irish Wake Orgy -

158

Cuchulainn and Lug -

>59-

161

(g) The Water-Horse

161

{h) Serpent-Form

165

(#) Wolf-Form

170

(J) Dog-Form

173

(k) Seal-Form

175

(/) Boar-Form : an treith chuileanach -

175

(m) Semi- theriomorphic Form

176

(n) The Tree-Soul

179

The Rowan as Tree of Life -

181

The Sacred Tree or Bile ...

187

The Tree-Soul and Labhraidh Lore

197

(o) The Soul in Stones or the God-Stone -

198

' Telling it to the Stones '

203

x CONTENTS

CHAPTER III. THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

PAGE

Stages of the Journey - - - 207

1. Lustration

2. Illumination

3. Healing

(a) 1. The Rites that unite Man with Man

(a) 2. The Rites that unite Man with the Divine

as recognised

(b) The Rites that avert

(d) Folk-Medicine

1. The Lustral Rites 208

Leigheas Cuairte 209

Lustration by Fire 211

Lustration by Water 216

„ „ Milk - - - - - - 218

The Transition from Lustration to Sacrifice : Blood - 220

2. Illumination - -220

Omens 224

Stones of Omen 227

Divination by Bull-Feast 229

Scapulimantia 231

Crystal-Gazing - - 233

The Sight of the Two Worlds (Second Sight) - - 239

First Sight : Apparent Double Presence : tarmachduinn 243

3. Healing

(a) 1. The Rites that unite Man with Man • - - 245

Wedding Rites in * Survival ' 247

(a) 2. The Rites that unite the Human with the Divine

Primitive Commensality 252

Libations 254

Michael's Cake 255

Offering - -257

Michael's Portion : the Michaelmas Sheep - - 259

Relics of Sacrifice : the * Devoted ' Person - - 261

Beltane Rural Sacrifice 262

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

Purification and Fertility

The Hogmanay Breast-Strip < p • • p 11 • f 2^3

The Man in Cow-Hide 265

(b) The Rites that avert \ Cocks in Sacrifice - - 266
The * Invocation ' to avert Ignorance or Revelation

attempted by Magic 267

The Part for the Whole: preventing Cattle-Loss - 270

Animal Sacrifice 271

Bull Sacrifice - - 273

Live Trout in Healing Rites 275

Human Sacrifices : heart of a man who did not

know his parents ; the man without a father ;

auspication of buildings ; ' the putting away of

Death'; vicarious sacrifice - - - 276
Elements of Sacrifice : commensality ; purification;

giving to get; giving to avert (propitiation);

substitution (life for life) - - - - 287

Positive Magic 291

The Negative Code - - - - 292

The Burdens of the Soul 299

Crime and Sacrifice ... . 305

The Transmission of Luck ----- 307

Psychic Suggestion ------ ^Qg

Primitive Incubation - - - - - 313

The Sacred Loch 315

The Sacred Well - ' 321

The Sacred Cave - 333

(d) Folk-Medicine : Religion and Magic - - 334

Retrospect ------ - 341

Index

344

1 » » » • »
* 2 • \ • • ••

THE FINDING OF THE SOUL.

Survivals may be defined as primitive rites believed
and practised, rites which once were 'faith' but
which from a later and higher conception simply
1 remain over ' or survive. A survival may remain
over both as ' belief and as ' rite ' ; in either case it
is the equivalent of the Latin ' superstitio.' But the
English 'superstition' is too bare a term for it. For
a belief or ritual custom once existed as a living
force ere it sank into the position of a survival. A
survival is what has been left stranded while all
around it there has been more or less of change, of
development, due to the growth of thoughtfulness
and to the action of environment and of historical
forces. What has once become a survival, if it have
a future, has only a future of decay: its life now is
in decay, it has no development as a whole. But
manifestly in a social organism there are different
rates of progress. Not all parts of the life of a social
system develop at the same time, at the same rate,
or in the same way. Nor is there the same con-
tinuous development over the same period of time.
Accordingly there are strata of belief and ritual in

THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

any and every social system, in the most recent as in
the most archaic.

It is well to examine those archaic survivals one
knows best ; to endeavour to reduce them in an
unpretentious way to some system from the point of
view of a comparative study of man. Presupposed
is the unity of mankind, i.e. of man as a thinking and
moral being. Consequently, while this study is, on
the whole, confined to customs among the Celts, I
feel at liberty to read these in the light of analogous
customs where possible. I do not know that in
origin they are all Celtic. Ere the Celtic migrations
these islands were inhabited by other tribes whose
beliefs were most probably preserved among the
Celts. It is not likely that Celtic and non-Celtic
tribes would have at the same period the same beliefs
and practices, which might be accounted for by both
having been on a different plane of development.

It would be most instructive and interesting to
assign to each tribe its own special belief and rite: in
part that is attempted by the folk-lorist. Here it is
no mere collection of beliefs or of rites that is aimed
at, but the interpretation of these in the light of the
1 soul.' At first, I believe that the non-Celtic tribes
preserved their own belief and ritual for the reason
that they were not admitted to full legal status
among the Celts. Yet the Celtic tuath or tribe and
the Celtic fine or clan were incorporating organisms,
and through inter-marriages new and alien customs
were introduced and preserved, especially among the
mothers. The Pictish matriarchal system is of
special importance. In the light of 'mother-right'
and all that inheres therein one may perhaps read

A POSSIBLE NON-CELTIC ELEMENT 3

such traces as may be found of the couvade and of
the aire cklaidh, 'kirkyard watch' or 'grave guardian,'
of which anon. A psychical anthropology of the
Celts is much wanted; but that of any single branch
is best read in the light of the rest, indeed of com-
parative religion. What Edmund Spenser said of
the 'wild Irish,' of whom he wrote in 1595 in his
View of the State of Ireland, is equally true of the
Highlands : "All the customs of the Irish, which I
have often noted and compared with what I have
read, would minister occasion of a most ample
discourse of the original of them, and the antiquity
of that people, which in truth I think to be more
ancient than most that I know in this end of the
world : so as if it were taken in the handling of some
man of sound judgement and plentiful reading, it
would be most pleasant and profitable." In this
search, which is of great intricacy and excessive
delicacy, as treating of belief-complexes which really
reflect soul-movements, it is only by some under-
standing of the whole that one may interpret the
part. Some curious rites, which in undertones I
learned of long ago in the Highlands, came down
through the native midwives, a breed that is now
extinct in so far as the old rites are concerned : it
was the thought of understanding these in the light
of the whole that first led me to make this attempt.
I make no doubt but the distinction of rites between
the Celtic and non-Celtic tribes was once as firm as
the distinction between tribesman and non-tribesman,
which Mr. Seebohm has shown to be an important
feature of Celtic law.1

1 Tribal System in Wales, pp. 54-60.

THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

A help in the solution of the problems of Celtic
psychical anthropology would be to classify all
customs, beliefs and rites which have the same
conceptions of life. The mythic influence of the
conquered tribes ought not to be forgotten. But it
needs consideration likewise that tribes now united
into a nation may formerly have held customs quite
different from what they do now. The common
Gadhelic sayings : ' it is mother-affinity (friend-
ship) that is nearest ' ; * ' I will not say brother save
to the son that my mother bore,'2 point back to the
Pictish social system, according to which descent
was reckoned in the female line. This, it has been
argued, is a feature which the Picts owed to non-
Aryan predecessors. But may not a race in the
course of its long history be led to change its
customs from within ? Wherever we meet with
descent reckoned in the female line, are we in
presence of the non-Aryan ? Mr. Frazer shows
how in royal families in Latium and in Greece the
daughters were kept at home, and the sons went
forth to marry princesses and reign among their
wives' peoples;3 he says that " among the Saxons
and their near kinsmen the Varini it appears to have
been a regular custom for the new king to marry his
stepmother."4

And further : "Attic usage always allowed a man
to marry his half-sister by the same father, but not
his half-sister by the same mother. Such a rule
seems clearly to be a relic of a time when kingship

1 Is e cdirdeas na mathar as dilse.

2 Cha chan mi brathair ach ris a' ?nhac a rug mo mhathair.

3 Frazer, Early History of the Kingship^ p. 238. 4 lb. p. 244.

WHAT WAS ONCE FAITH

was counted only through women."1 He instances
also the great house of Aeacus in Greece, the grand-
father of Achilles and Ajax, and the family of the
Pelopidae. The relation of mother to child is of the
first importance, and cults and customs ought not
to be read without keeping it in view. After all,
as Professor Gilbert Murray2 has pointed out fitly,
the Matriarchate is one of the great civilising
influences of mankind.

What is now but a mere ' survival ' was once the
sole substitute for our philosophy and religion ; the
mere superstition of to-day is in unbroken continuity
with the dateless ages of earliest faiths. Progress
and change there have been throughout, but hardly
such breaks as efface the possibility of our recognising
the religiosity of man as part of his psychical being.
Survivals, — making all allowance for diversities of
customs springing from different races within different
eras of time, and sometimes possibly temporarily
resumed within a race which has discarded them
within its own past, — are but disguises which point
to the inherent unity of human thought in thinking
itself out; to lift these disguises into their unconscious
system is to come upon the soul at work, speaking
to us half-aloud, and revealing what St. Augustine
perceived long ago, — the inherent unity of all
religious feeling. In his Retractions, the Bishop of
Hippo declares that what is now called the Christian

1 lb. p. 245. For the Picts v. Zimmer in my Leabhar Nan Gleann.

2 The Rise of the Greek Epic (Heinemann), p. 76. Miss Harrison
refers to a clue to matriarchal theology in Pythagoras {Prolegomena,
262) and points to indications of Mother-Right in St. Augustine
{ib. 261°). "Matriarchy gave women a magical prestige," says Miss
Harrison (ib. 285, cf. 272).

THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

Religion existed among the ancients, and in fact was
with the human race from the beginning.1 It is his
way of expressing the idea of religious persistencies.
These have various origins, although the composite
elements are ultimately brought under one dominant
thought which was latent in the rites from the
beginning. Religion is the body of sacred rites or
scruples embodied in observances which a man finds
binding on himself with regard to the wills or Will,
which to his consciousness are in connection with
and have regard to his life. As given or revealed
it is the Deity that covenants. Man is bound
thereby to his fellows and has regard for social ties.
In course of man's development in a social order,
ancestral souls, the souls of the dead, enter into his
life for good or ill, as also Nature-Spirits conceived
as active in air, earth, water and fire, culminating at
length in the One Nature-Spirit.

It is in the rite that concrete religion is posited.
The rite is the correct inherited ancestral custom,
having at bottom the idea of what has been measured
or numbered, and thus fixed by the convenience of
the ancestral community. It foreshadows the idea
of Harmony. ' Follow, thou, closely the fame of
thine ancestors ' {lean-sa ciluth ri cliu do shinusear)
is a Highland maxim favourable to survivals.
What served the past is good for us also. A
particular religious obedience every man is free to
impose upon himself. But man does not often reach
his fundamental self: "the moments at which we thus
grasp ourselves are rare, and that is just why we are

1 Res ipsa, quae nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud
antiquos nee defuit ab initio generis humani. . . .

RELIGION AND RITE

rarely free. The greater part of the time we live
outside ourselves, hardly perceiving anything of our-
selves but our own ghost, a colourless shadow which
pure duration projects into homogeneous space.
Hence our life unfolds itself in space rather than in
time ; we live for the external world rather than for
ourselves ; we speak rather than think ; we ' are
acted ' rather than act ourselves." x As living in
space man becomes involved in a system of ritual
prohibitions : do not. They are solemn declarations
framed for his well-being, and need to be tested in
practice. The taboos of other races are present with
the Gael as gessa or sacred restrictions. It is their
religious quality which imparts them persistency.
Religion now reveals its life in the way whereby
one approaches God ; there are various avenues of
approach to the Power regarded as divine, and in
approaching by these ways it is felt that one should
have regard to approaching aright and with due
care. There is no religion without its ritual. In
the rite is expressed devotion to the object for
which one feels a care. Outwardly worship must
necessarily manifest the worshipper as one who is
giving in order to get ; he may give goods or self,
but in either case his actions imply a Power that can
give what may be gotten. Religion is ultimately a
progress in Life, and this implies the exercise of
reflection which ultimately eliminates idols. Acts of
devotion may be manifested (a) with relation to
souls and with relationship of souls to the Highest
Soul or God ; (6) and may be conditioned by
sympathetic association with objects regarded as

1 Bergson's Time and Free Will, p. 231.

8 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

having souls, or as being alive (Animism). Devotion
thus embraces all phases of Manism (of which
what is known as Totemism is but a moment). In
Gadhelic, devotion is expressed by crabhadh, piety
(in rite) ; old Irish crabud, ' faith ' ; cognate with
Cymric crefydd. In the Highlands the adjective
crabhach is applied to one who is devout and
observant of pious rites. The root of the word is
met with in Sanskrit vi-crambh, 'trust' The rites
of religion 1 {crabhadh) are the various avenues of
approaching the Being in whom one has trust,
expressed or implied. But heart-giving has a side
which implies belief inclusive of heart-consent. In
Gadhelic this is expressed by the word creideamh ;
Old Irish cretim ; Cymric credu ; all cognate with
Latin credo, l I believe'; Sanskrit crad-dadhdmi, 'I
give heart to.' The attitude of mind thus attained
to is expressed by the Old Irish tress, 'faith ' (literally
'on-standing'), which only survives in the negative
in the modern Gadhelic amharus, ' doubt' ; Old Irish
amairess, ' unbelief, infidelitas.' Religion therefore,
so far as an examination of the Celtic languages
leads, is seen to embrace :

i. the rite {crabhadh, trust expressed in rite),

2. the heart-consent {creideamh),

3. faith (in the object or end of the rite) : tress.
This inclusive attitude of mind, so far as the
objects of attention are concerned, may have re-
ference to

1 The L. religio implies carefulness and diligence in things pertaining
to rites of devotion ; it is the very opposite of negligence. The recent
attempt to connect it with religare in the sense of 'binding the god' is
erroneous to my thinking.

CELTIC RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY

i. The Word :

(a) the word of prohibition or restriction
(geas) : the negative word ;

(b) the word of magic or the positive power

of the Word spoken (ob, brtka, guidke) :
the positive word ;

2. The Soul or Souls, which embrace

(a) soul-parts, or soul in association with parts

of the body ;

(b) the internal soul or soul proper ;

with, but imagined as outside the body
(sympathetic association).

3. Nature-spirits and Ancestral Spirits (Animism).

4. Communion of Life :

(a) the Word by the blood-soul, the god-in-

the-blood ; by the swearing relics of a
saint {minn, mionn, i.e. oath) ; by the
virtue of the elements, by the sun and
moon ; by the tribal god (tong a toing
mo th atk).

(b) the Word to the God (Prayer: urnutgh,

guidh) ;

(a) in the omen (manadk) ;

(b) in the portent (tuar) ;

(fi) in second-sight (taibksearachd, an

da-shealladli) ;
(7) in prophetic knowledge (dailgneachd ;

tairmgearacht) ; taisbein or revelation.

io THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

5. Sacrifice :

(a) partaking in thankfulness with the god

(uibhir aig Dia de 'chuid) ;

(b) giving to get (do ut des) ;

6. The God-land :

(a) the land of the young (Tir na n-Og) ; the

island paradise ;

(b) the conquest of the Sldh and its joys

(pibinnius in t-sidd) ;

shadows of the immortals ; and the
twilight of the gods.

The Word has freedom. It has also the danger
that accompanies freedom : it may be made an idol.
Words are the manufacturers of idols. As ' spell,
taboo, charm ' the word is ge as, E. Irish gets, derived
from the root in the verb guidA, 'entreat' (Old Irish
guidiu, gude, guide), cognate with Gothic bidjan
1 ask/ and English bidding, surviving in ( the bid-
ding prayer.'

The potency of strong entreaty is witnessed to in
the Highland saying: 4a witch will get her wish
though her soul should not receive mercy.'1 Even
the dead can take fuller vengeance than the living,
and the death-bed entreaty 2 binds the survivor.

The religious sentiment includes belief in the
potency of the word. Hence the easy and too
common delusion that religion derives from magic.
To start with, religion embraces more than the
magic word : hence a study of all ' survivals ' reveals

1 Gheobh baobh a guidhe ged nach fhaigheadh a h -anam trocair.

2 Corrachd.

THE SPOKEN WORD u

more than ' magic ' ; it shows acts and objects of faith
in which the heart either rests or works its way out
of towards a more abiding content. The rhythmic
formula or carmen (whence charm), older can-men, in
root cognate with Gadhelic, can, ' to say,' had such
occult power that, according to Virgil, it could draw
the moon from the sky.1 And so close is the con-
nection between the prayer and the spell that the
word that once signified the former may be degraded
to signify the latter. One example is the following.

When a witch has bespelled a man, the modern
Gadhelic phrase is : ' she has put the orth (spell)
in him.'2 This word, however, is but a loan from
the Latin orationem ; the accusative in Early Irish
is orthain, 'prayer,' in which sense the word is met
with on an Iona tombstone. As in everything else,
there is such a thing as deterioration in religion, as
the above transition of meaning manifests. One
must guard against deriving religion from magic or
identifying it therewith. For ' charm, incantation,'
the native word is obaidh? When a witch is credited
with having bespelled a man the Highlander says :
'she gave him a word.'4 Connected of old with the
power of the word was that of the satirist, who could
raise blotches on the face or rhyme an enemy to
death.

Further, the word could make the absent one
visible by apparition : the spell for this purpose is

1 Carmina vel caelo possunt deducere lunam.

2 Chuir i an 6rth' ann.

3 Also ubaidh ; ubag ; ob (rarely) — all from the root ba, ' to speak,'
utter.

4 Thug i facal da (common speech).

12 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

known in Uist as Fath-Flth} Irish has fath, 'a
kind of poem,' which I suggest is cognate with
Cymric gwawd, panegyric ; O. English wdet ; O.
Norse o*&r, song, poetry, metre. Near allied are
Irish faith, prophet, Latin vates, Gothic vods, man.
With the side form fith is to be compared the
Welsh gwiddon, 'a witch/ a word used in D. ab
Gwilym's poems ; the plural occurs in ' Llys y
Gwiddonod,' the Witches' Court, where the witches
are associated with prophecy and prediction in a
way that allows them being regarded as the authors.
Rhys asks why the Gadhelic women warriors in
Gloucestershire were described in Welsh as witches
{gwiddonod), and adds : " It is unfortunate that the
etymology of the word eludes my search."2 I believe
it is from the magic power of the word. Fith has
no connection with the term ft still met with in the
asseveration : Gun gabh am Ft thu = may the Evil
One take thee! Here Ft is cognate with Ir. ft,
bad (Cormac, O'Clery) ; (there is also ft, ' poison,'
cognate with L. virus, Gr. &$?, Skr. vishd). The
power of the word is so great that a witch's wish
when expressed in words may produce gonadh, a
wounding or wasting away, which may take various
forms ; it is reputed by some to produce even child-

1 v. Carmina Gadelica. Joyce has suggested that here we have the
origin of the words which head St. Patrick's hymn Faeth Fiada (with
the d aspirated ?), long rendered as the guardsman's cry, the deer's cry,
but really a 'spell' for rendering invisible. The story of the deer
may have arisen from a folk-etymon. When Patrick, with his eight
companions, went before King Loigaire, the king saw but eight deer
and a fawn making for the wilds. The monarch returned to Tara in
the morning twilight, disheartened and ashamed. For Transformation
into Animal Form, v. ch. ii.

2 Anthropological Essays presented to E. B. Tylor, Oxford, p. 293.

THE SPELL 13

lessness. Thus, on Eilean Aigais, an island on the
Beauly River (Uisge Farrar in the upper reaches,
but now Abhuinn na Manchuinne in the lower), it
is said that a woman was hung wrongously on a
tree and eaten to death by the flies ; ere dying she
pronounced a curse imprecating childlessness on
those who should hereafter live there, a curse that
was held to have been literally fulfilled. A death-
bed entreaty {corrachd} Ir. coruigheacht) had special
force because of the revenant (tathaiclt) spirit which
was credited with power to injure the living. I've
heard a person declare to another as to coming back
after death : * when I rise up it is thou who wilt get
the first slap or blow' (^nuair dk'eireas mi's hi
gheobh a chiad sgailc).

The positive side of the magic word leads to
sorcery (buitseachd, draoidheackd), the negative
aspect includes the rites that are taboo (geas) ; the
positive precepts that are to be used are spells or
charms (ortha, orthachan ; ubagan) ; the negative
precepts are taboos (gessa). The positive word of
magic says * do ' ; the negative word of magic says
1 don't.' It is assumed that all things are in sym-
pathy, and act on one another : things which have
once been in contact continue to act on each other
even after the contact has been removed. Thus, a
man I knew of would never start from his home
before sunrise to go on any business without first

1 For Ness, Lewis, I noted the word with a long 6 : tha mi 'ga chur
corachd ort, i.e. I place on thee a stipulation not to be broken ; while
for Lome I got the phrase : chuir e corachd air a theangaidh^ * he
spoke as if he disguised or hid his speech/ which must be a secondary
meaning ; in any case it is not mine, which is invariably 'a death-bed
entreaty.'

14 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

putting his left knee sunwise thrice round the horse's
head. This sained the animal and prevented it
from seeing supernatural spirits, for it had been
in contact with a man who blessed it in name of
the Trinity. Again, like things produce like things ;
and thus, if you wish to injure a man, injure some-
thing like him. This rests on a fallacy in elementary
reasoning ; but much experience has been necessary
to convince mankind of errors which, however
apparently simple, have issued in gross deeds. An
instance of this magic is that of ' turning- the-heart
in lead ' (cridke luadhainn, tionndadh cridhe), which
I have seen done in the Highlands several times.
A rite somewhat similar existed in the Austrian
Tyrol, and in parts of Germany, and J. Grimm
traced it to Greece.1 In the Highlands, when a
friend has something the matter with the heart, a
wise man who knows this rite, — living at a distance
makes no difference, — melts some lead which he
pours through a key taken from the outer door over
a basin of cold water, making mention of the heart
of the person whom he names, and invoking the
Trinity : if the shapes as they form in the water can
be got to resemble a heart, much virtue ensues to
the healing and strengthening of the friend who
is far off. The friend often knows that such a rite
is practised on his behalf, and that prayers of faith
are offered for his recovery.

Another rite which I have often heard of is that

1 " Apparently of Greek origin is the widely-received custom of
pouring out lead ; even Ihre mentions it : cf. molybdomantia ex
plumbi lique facti diversis motibus (Potter's Arch. i. 339), i.e. lead-
divination from the divers motions of liquid lead." — Grimm's Germ.
Myth. 1 1 18.

THE POSITIVE WORD 15

of the clay-body (corp criadh), the magic of which
rests on the principle of similarity. It is fairly
common in Celto- Latin lands.1 A figure is made of
clay, and either the whole or the parts which it is
desired to injure are covered with pins and nails
to the accompaniment of maledictions ; the image is
then buried in the ground or placed in a stream in a
somewhat inaccessible locality, on the principle that
the sooner the clay-body dissolves, the sooner will
the body of the person thus represented be wrecked.
For the Isle of Man there is a good instance given
where an image was turned before a large fire, and
pins stuck into it while a rhyme was being muttered,
coincident with which the minister was found suffer-
ing with wracking pains. On a search having been
made, the supposed effigy of the minister was found,
as also an old bladder, with pins, rusty nails and
skewers. This female practitioner was sentenced to
be executed, "and just before she was bound to the
stake, confessed the crime for which she was about
to suffer."2 In the Highlands there are instances of
quite recent occurrence. I quote from a reliable
writer of recent date, simply changing the spelling
Creagh into Criadh, as being more correct philo-
logically :

"A rather gruesome relic of a barbarous age
which I have heard of as happening within the
last few years, is that ugly one known as the Corp
Criadh. As its name indicates, this is a body of
clay rudely shaped into the image of the person

1 S^billot, Le Paganisme Contemporain chez les Peupies Celto-
Latins, pp. 152-157, re envoutement.

2 Moore, Folk Lore of the Isle of Man, p. 90, quoting Train.

16 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

whose hurt is desired. After a tolerably correct
representation is obtained, it is stuck all over with
pins and thorns, and placed in a running stream.
As the image is worn away by the action of the
water, the victim also wastes away with some mortal
disease. The more pins are stuck in from time to
time, the more excruciating agony the unfortunate
victim suffers. Should, however, any wayfarer by
accident discover the Corp in the stream the spell is
broken, and the victim duly recovers. A case of
Corp Criadh has been known to occur in Uist
within the last five years ; and in a parish adjoining
ours, it was whispered that the death of a certain
young man was due to a spell of this nature.

" Another case that was told to me was concerning
a young woman who set her affections upon a certain
young man. But on this occasion Barkis was not
willing, and he would have none of her. To revenge
herself for his shocking want of taste, she resolved
that if she was not fated to get him, then neither
would any possible rival. In this dog-in-the-manger
frame of mind, she made a Corp Criadh for the
luckless youth. But it so happened that one day a
neighbour (who is the mother of my informant)
went into the girl's father's barn to look for some
eggs, and hidden among some hay she found, not
eggs, but the Corp. There is reason to believe that
during the land agitation and strife which have of
recent years occupied the Highlands, the rite was
practised in connection with some of the land-
leaguers who had made themselves obnoxious to
their fellows."1

1 Sheila MacDonald in Folk Lore for 1903, 373-374.

MAGIC CHARM 17

The power of the ■ word ' is seen in magic charms
to stop blood and bleeding. Moore1 gives instances
for the Isle of Man. And I know of instances
where persons yet alive believe in the Blood-spell,
and have a charm for stanching blood (Eolas,
Casga Fola). In Sutherland, Ross and Inverness
its efficacy depends on its being transmitted from
male to female, and from female to male.

In former times there was another term, not now
used in the Highlands, viz., Ir. bricht, 'magic,
magical spell,' apparently the ceremonially conceived
word on which J. Grimm lays stress as the essential
requisite of the magic if it is to be effective.
Osthoff would equate bricht with I eel. bragr, * poetry,
art of poetry,' and with the Sanskrit brahman, on the
assumption that it means 'magic, witchcraft.'2

The power of the word even as acting at a
distance is still tacitly believed in : e.g. the phrase,
Cearr nam ban is deas nam fear, is repeated when
there is a sudden reddening of one of the ears : if it
be the left ear, the inference is that it is women who
are speaking about you ; if the right ear, that it is
men.

The Greek for a word as something spoken was
v-vOos, 'anything delivered by word of mouth, word,
speech,5 whence our ' myth.' The spoken word is
essential for religion. A South Pacific myth tells
that when the Creator of all things had ordered the
solid land to rise from the primeval waters, he

1 Folk Lore of the Isle of Matt, pp. 96-99. Cf. for Ireland O'Foharta's
Siamsa an Gheimhridh, p. 133 ; and An Lochra?in (Tralee, Kerry,
1910).

2Bezz. Beit, xxiv., Gottingen, 1899, P- JI3- Allerhand Zauber
etymologisch beleuchtet.

18 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

walked abroad to survey his work. "It is good,"
said he aloud to himself. "Good," answered an echo
from a neighbouring hill. "What!" exclaimed the
Creator, " Is some one here already ? Am not I
first ? " "I first," answered the echo. Therefore,
the Mangaians assert, the earliest of all existences
is the bodiless voice. It is their way of saying, "In
the beginning was the Word." 1

Unless one named the day, a witch could hear one
speaking of her on a Friday even if far off. Hence
one said : an diu Di-h-aoine, cha chluinn iad mi air
mitir no tir— to-day is Friday; they will not hear
me on sea or land.

A parallel to this belief in the power within the
word may be found in the phrase : Tha facal aice =
' She has a word,' said of a witch who is credited with
power to cause one in virtue of her word to do her
bidding. One is reminded of the phrase used by
the people when the demoniac was cured at Caphar-
nahum : t& ea-n ovtos \6yos, * What sort of word
(or language) is this ? for with authority and real
power He gives orders to the foul spirits and they
come out' (Lc. -£$). By \6yos, or word, here the
people may have meant some formula of exorcism,
some cabalistic ' word ' which forced the demons to
obey.

If such be the power of the magic word, how much
more important is the word which is or contains the
name (ainni) itself! All the spells and charms for
averting the evil eye that are in use end by insert-
ing the name of the person to be cured, adding
thereto the sanctifying clause : in the Name of the

1 Gill's Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, pp. 86-87.

THE SOUL IN THE NAME 19

Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. To counteract
evils the name is even changed.1 For the soul is
regarded as in the name. It is forbidden to awaken
one who is suffering from night-mare (trom-laigke) 2
unless one has first summoned him by name. The
inference is that his soul is away and is to be called
back by the ritual use of the person's name ; the old
folks therefore enjoined one : na duisg e gun ghairm
air ainm = do not waken him without calling him by
name. To do otherwise is gessa, or taboo now ; at
an earlier day, the fear was that a' man might die,
for his soul was but a tenant of the body, not in any
way in relation to or a result of its functions.

I find with many that it is a matter of extreme
importance to call a child by the name of a deceased
ancestor ; death is but a minor affair so long as the
name is kept up. This is known as : togail an
ainm = lifting or raising the name (of the deceased
relative). Perhaps it is owing to some association
of belief with the old idea of the name-soul that so
many saints had double names, e.g. Crimthann,
1 wolf,' the first name of St. Columcille, the ' church
dove.' And many heroes of the Fionn-Saga have
double names. I have seen the custom of naming
a child after a deceased relative explained by the
intention of securing rest in his grave for the latter ;
the child when grown up was bound to brave the
influence which caused its relative's death. But on
Celtic ground I have not heard of such an explan-
ation. The practice of " giving a new-born babe

1]. G. Campbell's Sitperstitions, p. 245.

2 What trom may be here is uncertain : cf. trom-dhie, ' household
gods,' in E. Irish ; trom usually is ' heavy, oppressive.'

20 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

the name of a deceased person is to be traced back
in the old Icelandic sagas, where a dying person
often appeals to another to name a future child after
him, because he expected advantage from it." Mr.
Hartland infers that he thereby expected to secure a
new birth.1 In the case of a child's death, if he has
borne the name of a deceased relative, it is often
held unlucky in the Highlands to give the same
name to another child ; but that is aside from the
main desire of ' raising the name/

The Gadhelic ainm, 'name,' is cognate with
Welsh anu, enw ; Gr. ovo/ua, Prussian emmens, Old
Bulgarian im§, the root ono allied to no in L. nomen,
E. name.

In Wales English names were regarded as very
unlucky for fishermen (Trevelyan, 329).

Of great import of old was an asseveration by the
name of the tribal god. No doubt many Celtic
god-names would have been kept secret, and it is
probable that often only epithets have survived.
However that may be, we find the phrase tong a
toing mo thuath — ' I swear what my tribe swears '
(with an occasional variant, ■ I swear by the god
of my tribe') of frequent occurrence in Irish litera-
ture : and if tong be cognate with L. tango, ' I
touch/ as it seems to be, the idea underlying is that
of ' touching ' some sacred thing, be it stone or
something else, — a habit continued in Christian
days by taking the mionn or oath, E. Ir. mind,
1 oath, diadem,' by touching the swearing relics or
insignia of a saint. Cognate is O. Welsh minn,
'sertum'; MacBain compares O.H.G. menni, 'neck

1 Primitive Paternity, i. 225 (Folk- Lore Soc. issue).

THE WORD BY THE TRIBAL GOD 21

ornament,' Ag. S. mene, 'neck chain,' L. monile.1
How far the idea of the soul is expressed under
the sense of touch we will consider later under the
custom of 'touching the corpse.'

It is of interest to notice that a prickly sensation
in the nose is known as menmain, a word which
is but a variant of O. Ir. menme, g. menman,
* mind, mens,' cognate with Skr. m&nman, ' mind,
thought,' L. mens; also memtnz, 'remember,' E. mean,
mind. The menmain is a sensation which prognos-
ticates the coming of a stranger or visitor. On the
other hand a secretion such as the saliva (sez/e) is
of special virtue in ratifying bargains or in curing
warts : this is because originally the spittle was
conceived as possessing soul-force. At markets I
have noticed that bargains are still sealed by spitting
on the hand ere two parties clasp hands on coming
to an agreement. I have heard also of a belief
that some of the Clan Campbell, through a certain
feeling in the eye-brow, foreknew of a Campbell's
death. A sneeze (sreot) is also a sort of omen :
a c spirit ' is thought to take possession of one ; when
one sneezes involuntarily it was etiquette with some

1 The power of the word as seen in the curse is evidenced by the
Manx phrase Mollaght Mynney, which Moore {Folk-Lore of the Isle
of Man, nn) says, "is the bitterest curse in our language, that leaves
neither root nor branch, like the Skeabthoan, the besom of destruc-
tion." It seems to originate from the old custom of swearing by the
relics of a saint, for the word is different from Manx Monney, ' a sign,
an omen, a portent,' G. manadh, 'omen.' Noticeable also is the
reference in this Manx oath to sun and moon {ry ghrian as eayst\
met with also in present-day Ireland : dar brigh na griine 's na
gealaighe, 'by the virtue or essence of the sun and of the moon'
(Lub na Caillighe, p. 20 ; ed. S. Laoide, Connradh na Gaedhilge, i
?nBaile Atha Cliath).

22 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

to say, ' God be with thee ' (Dia leal). The kidney
(adka, ae ; O. Ir. da, ae ; W. afu) is specially an
organ of the soul, and there are certain prescriptions
regarding it : children must not partake of it until
they can pronounce the word or name for it (Inver-
ness-shire) ; if you eat a whole kidney it will come
out on the body (Sutherland). From its connection
with the soul the skull or brain-pan (copan cinri) has
curative virtues : to drink water from the skull of
a dead man is believed in as a cure for epilepsy,
and has been to my knowledge faithfully carried out
lately (1909). A draught of the spirit of human
skull was a part of the medical treatment in vogue
in former times in higher circles.1 Even the human
hair as associated with the idea of soul is beloved
as a keepsake, and is treasured as a remembrance in
far-away lands. A stanza from a Highland poem
runs :

Tha t'fhalt-sa, 'ghaoil, na mo spliucan roin

Is bithidh, a ghaoil, fhad s a bhios mi beo ;

'S 'nuair dh'fhalbhas triuir learn 'ga m' ghiulan chon an fhod

Bidh t'fhalt-sa cuide rium an ciste chaoil nam bord.

i Thy hair, oh darling, is in my pouch of seal-skin, and will be so
long as I live; and when three bear me away carrying me to
the sod, thy hair, my dear one, will be with me in the narrow
chest of boards.'

The soul-life is thus held to be associated with
parts of the full-grown body. But even at birth
the body has its ritual. One could say, before
birth, inasmuch as it is held to be unlucky for two
women who are great with child to come into the
same room if either be near confinement. To

1 Cf. The Last Days of Charles II, by R. Crawfurd, M.D. (Oxford :
Clarendon Press).

ANCIENT RITUAL OF THE AFTER-BIRTH 23

contravene this rule was gessa or taboo in the code
of old Highland midwives, who held that the infant
of one of the parties must die or be still-born (Inver-
ness-shire). The after-birth had its special ritual.
To my knowledge the following was the belief held
not so long ago : " The old women were very care-
ful of the after-birth ; if it were burnt in the wrong
manner the wife would have no more children.
The midwives had great fear of this in case of
taking away the lives of others. But if the wife
would eat the after-birth of another woman, the
children would come back. It was the custom of
the late Mrs. G. (a certain midwife) to cause women
who for the first time became mothers bite the
placenta thrice. The mother thereafter would not
suffer the pains of childbirth. ni

On no account was the after-birth to be carelessly
thrown outside, lest dogs should get it ; it was to be
decently buried under a tree or carefully burnt. The
old midwives sometimes were wont to keep a
portion, and this when roasted they ordered to be
drunk with water in cases of sterility. In Ireland I
find that " an after-birth must be burned to preserve
the child from the fairies."2 The omphalos3 was in

1 Bha iad gle thoigheach mu'n tearnadh : nan rachadh an tearnadh
a losgadh ann san rathad chll cha bhiodh tuille cloinne aig a bhean
(sic). Bha eagal mor air na mnathan gluine roimh so mus biodh iad a
gabhail beatha fheadhainn eile. Ach nan itheadh a bhean tearnadh
bean (sic) eile thigeadh a' chloinn (sic) air ais. B'abhaist do bhean
I. G. nach maireann a thoir air bean air a chlad chloinn tri caoban
thoir as a' chochull bha m'an cuairt do'n leanabh. Chan fhuilingeadh
am mathair piantan cloinne an deighidh sin.

2Kinahan's Notes on Irish Folklore; v. Folklore Record, iv. p. 104.
3G. imleag, ilmeag, E. Ir. imbliu, cognate with L. umbilicus, Gr.
o[A<f)a\6s, E. navel, Skr. ndbhi, ?iabhila.

24 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

the Highlands ground to powder after it fell off
on the ninth day or so, and was mixed with water and
given to the child to drink. The cord was sacred, as
it united the unborn infant to the life of the mother ;
it was held to retain life in some mysterious manner.
In Greece the navel or omphalos is the symbol of
the Earth- Mother ; 1 for Brazil, Southey2 says:
" Immediately upon a woman's delivery the father
takes to his hammock, covers himself up, and is
nurst there till the navel string of the infant has
dried away; the union between him and his progeny
is regarded as so intimate that care must be taken
of him lest the child should suffer." The omphalos
was a favourite amulet among the Crees, according
to Mackenzie's History of the Fur Trade (p. 86).
Among American Indians it was a frequent custom
to carry it to a distance and bury it ; in later life it
was the individual's duty to go alone to that
spot and perform certain ceremonies. From other
parallels, therefore, I conclude that the Celtic ritual
of the navel-string was due to some connection with
the life of the soul, as it was imagined. "The
navel-string and the placenta are often regarded
as external souls."3 Blood drunk from the child's
navel and eating the dried remains of the navel-
garrison's Prolegomena, 321. As to Earth -Mother, I noted a
children's game in Eriskay called' Mathair M/tor, l Big Mother,' where
the mother was feigned to be a pig ! It is possibly a relic of early
ritual.

2 Hist of Brazil, i. 238.
>4 3 Crawley : Tree of Life, p. 226. Mr. Crawley points out that the
soul is often placed on a tree for safe keeping. Cf. Hazlitt's Diet, of
Faiths and Folklore, sub Heam = after burthen, secundine. The after-
bearth of cows was put on a hawthorn bush with faith that they shall
have a cow next year {id.).

THE SOUL IN THE EYE 25

string are approved folk-cures for sterility else-
where.1

Further, among body-parts mythic thought in-
terprets the soul as in the eye (the Evil Eye).

The singular malific influence of a glance has
been felt by most persons in life ; an influence that
seems to paralyse intellect and speech, simply by
the mere presence in the room of some one who is
mystically anti-pathetic to our nature. For the soul
is like a fine-toned harp that vibrates to the slightest
external force or movement, and the presence and
glance of some persons can radiate around us a
divine joy, while others may kill the soul with a
sneer or frown. We call these subtle influences
mysteries, but the early races believed them to be
produced by spirits good or evil, as they acted on
the nerves of the intellect.2

All races have a belief in the power of the eye
which but expresses the soul. The soul is not
thought of as confined to any one single organ of
the body. The Romans spoke of the fascination of
an evil tongue : mala fas cinare lingua (Catullus, vii.
12); ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro (Virgil,
BucoL Eel. vii. 28).

But the Romans3 were pre-eminently familiar

1 Hartland, Prim. Patern. i. 70 ; ii. 276.

2 Lady Wilde's Ancient Legends of Ireland, vol. i. p. 37.

3 E.g. Non istic obliquo oculo mea commoda quisquam limat, —
Horace, Epist. 1. xiv. yj ; Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat
agnos, — Virgil, Bucol. Eel. iii. 103 ; conspiciturque sinus, — Juvenal,
Sat. vii. 112 ; Ter cana, ter dictis despue carminibus, — Tibullus, Eleg.
I. ii. 56; veniam a deis petimus spuendo in sinum, — Pliny, xxviii. 4, 7.
The shepherd in Theocritus (Idy. vi. 39), following the injunctions of
a 'wise' woman, spits thrice into his own lap in order to save himself
from the consequences of self-admiration.

26 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

with the evil eye and its cure ; in Spain * the evil
eye is known as causing illness (qtterelar nasula) ;
Italy abounds with the belief; Sebillot2 gives several
instances of talismans used for preserving one from
the effects of the evil eye (a la prkserver du mauvais
oezl). The evil eye is due to soul-magic. In Scot-
land it is well known ; suffice it to refer to the
collections on this topic by the late Rev. J. G.
Campbell3 and by Dr. R. C. Maclagan.4 Young
infants are frequently believed to be overlooked ;
likewise cattle ; a man may lay the evil eye even
on what is his own property, as when a husband
must on no account see the churning operations,
as his glance would prevent the butter coming.
The great remedy is burn ai7'gid, ' water into
which silver coins have been put,' as also gold and
copper if you like, but silver by all means. The
water has to be raised with a wooden ladle from
a stream over which pass the living and the dead,
in the name of the Trinity ; the sign of the cross
is made over the contents of the ladle, and a rhyme
is repeated wherein the opening word of the Lord's
Prayer, Pater, in G. Paidi7', is repeated seven times,
but alternately in name of the Virgin and of the
King (or Lord). Then the ritual says: " In the door
of the city (of heaven, i.e.) Christ gave three calls
full just : seven ' paters ' in name of the Virgin will
avert the evil eye, whether it be on human creature

1 Cf. G. Borrow, The Zincal, pt. I. c. viii.
3 P. 205.

3 Superstitions and Witchcraft.

4 The Evil Eye in the West Highlands. There is a German work
by S. Seligmann, Der dose blick u. Vermandtes: Ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte des Abenglaubens alter Zeiten u. Volker. 2 vols.

AVERTING THE EVIL EYE 27

or on brute : whoso hath laid on thee the eye, may
it return on themselves or on their children, and, if
children fail, on their substance : [the person's name
here], may'st thou be in thy full health, in name of
the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."1
The water is then partly given as a drink to the
child, partly sprinkled over it, and the rest is poured
out over a large stone or boulder that is never
moved by human hands. When rents make their
appearance in such stones, these are ascribed to the
penetrating and disintegrating force of envy, and
the saying goes: 'Envy breaks up the stone ' (brisidh
farmad a chlach). From the kind of coins that may
adhere to the wooden ladle on being emptied, and
from their position, some of the wise ones would
divine whether the evil eye in the special case was
that of a male or female. Such is the ritual of
averting the evil eye in Strathglass neighbourhood.
I now give an example or two from S. Uist, which
I owe the late Rev. Allan MacDonald.

11 If a person came and saw a cow or other
creature belonging to you, and he began to praise
it, e.g. if he were to say, tha iith mor aig a' bhoin,
'the cow has a big udder,' or anything similar

xLabhair Criosd an dorus na cathrach
TrI ghairmeachduinn cho ceart :
tillidh seachd paidrichean Moire cronachduinn sul'
co dhiubh bhios e air creutair no air bruid :
cia b'e air bith chuir ort-s' an t-suil
gu'n till i orra-fhein no air an cloinn
's mar 'eil a chlann ann gu bheil a chuid ann.
's mar 'eil a chlann ann gu bheil a chuid ann.

[An t-ainm]

Thu-sa bhiodh 'nad iom-shlaint

Ann an ainm an Athar, a Mhic, 's a Spioraid Naoimh.

28 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

of a complimentary nature, this act of praising
was called aibhseachadh ; and as it might lead
accidentally to gonadh, or evil eye, or wounding
of the cattle, as a preventative it was customary
to say to the person making the complimentary
remarks: Flinch do shuil=l wet your eye.' This
wetting of the eye was generally performed by
moistening the tip of the finger with saliva, and
moistening the eye with it thereafter.

" If a person were much afflicted by the toradh,
or ' milk produce/ being taken from him, he was
advised to adopt the following remedy : Whenever
one of his cows calves, to take away the calf imme-
diately before he draws milk from his dam, then to
take a bottle and draw milk from the four teats into
the bottle, the person so doing being on one knee,
and saying :

Gum beannaicheadh Dia na cuilean l so

Tha mise 'g iarraidh so 'n ainm Dhia

S cha n eil mi 'g iarraidh ach mo chuid fhein.

The bottle is then tightly corked and hidden in a
safe place. Here is a magic way of retaining the
whole by keeping the part. If the cork were to
be put in loosely, it is feared that the toradh would
be at the mercy of any one who had the faculty
of filching it. Another Uist informant, Duncan
M'Innes, said that he heard the effective way of
recovering the toradh was to snatch a bundle of
* thatch from the threshold of a suspected person
and to burn it beneath a churn (Tubhadh an

1 I.e. cuidh-lainn, * cattle-folds ' : may God bless these cattle-folds !
This I am asking in the name of God, nor am I asking but for mine
own.

THE BLOOD-SOUL 29

fhardoruis a thoirt Icat s a losgadh fo thoin a
chrannachain) ; and John Mackinnon, Dalibrog,
said : Nan cailleadh tu 'n dul air ceann na buaraich
chailleadh tu 'n toradh = i\i you were to lose the
loop on the end of the cow-tie, you would lose the
milk-produce.' "

A further stage of the concept of the Body- Soul
is that of Blood Magic or the Sotd in the Blood.
The connection of the soul-life with the blood would
naturally have been perceived from of old. Once
the body was drained of the blood death ensued.
The Irish collection of Church Canons quotes
Lactantius1 as to the nature of the soul, where he
states that some held the soul to be fire, others said
it was spirit, others that it was blood : fire, for it
vivifies the body ; spirit, for it breathes through the
members ; blood, for with the blood the soul passes
away. Such speculations might have become known
among some of the people, but their appeal to the
folk-mind, in so far as blood is concerned, would
have been easy. For, as Faust, who covenants in
blood with Mephistopheles, says : " Blood is a juice
of very special kind," — so much so that in Vedic
ritual sprinkling by blood is practised to lay evil
spirits, while in the Highlands the blood of a black
cock is spilled at the spot where the demon of
epilepsy first made its presence manifest. A blood-
mark connected with a foul deed was held in the
Highlands to be impossible to be wiped out. To
drink blood was an earnest token of true love. A

1 Lactantius ait : Alii animam ignem esse dixerunt, alii spiritum, alii
sanguinem. Ignem dicunt, quia vivificat corpus, spiritum quia spirat
per membra, sanguinem, quia cum sanguine migrat. Wasserschleben,
Die Irische Canonensammlung, 2nd ed. 1885, p. 233.

30 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

lady who entertained Prince Charlie in Harris
became full of sorrow on hearing of her lover having
been drowned on his way to marry her, and she
sang in lines which I may render thus :

Would, my God, I were near thee, my love,
on what bank soe'er or creek thou art cast ;

My liking, oh love ! were thy body's blood, —
and the red wine of Spain were nothing to me,

Will they, nill they, my drink were thy blood,
the blood that is flowing from out of thy breast,

The blood of thy body, dear love, I love best.

Again, in literature there is the case of Gregor
MacGregor of Glenstrae, put to death at Kenmore
by Sir Colin Campbell, who became laird of
Glenorchy in 1550 and proved himself a bitter foe
to Clan Gregor. Sir Colin caused his daughter's
husband, Gregor of Glenstrae, with whom she
eloped, and whom she married against her father's
will, to be executed at Kenmore in 1570. A brother
of hers also took the father's side. To escape
vengeance Gregor and herself and child had to
wander about, but were at last captured, and she
was forced to witness her husband's execution at
Tay mouth Castle. In her cry for vengeance on the
head of the perpetrator, she says :

Would that Taymouth and Finlarig

were a-flame, — razed to the ground ;
And Gregor's white palms, O Gregor the fair,

clasped in mine arms around.

No apples have I to-day, to-day,

though apples for others there be ;
My apple so sweet, my apple, my meat,

lying in cold earth is he.

To her bairn, fearing lest he may not attain man-

THE BLOOD-SOUL 31

hood to execute vengeance for the deed, she croons
sadly :

On Lammas morn and early

my love and I were merry ;
But ere the sun came to mid of day

mine heart was heavy, heavy.

On high-born kith and kindred

my curse for my sorrow's plight ;
By stealth my love was taken

and unawares by might.

Were twelve there of his kindred

with Gregor at their head,
Mine eyes were not a-shedding tears

my bairnie friendless made.

On a block of oak they set his head,

they shed his blood with a will ;
On the ground they spilt it, and had 1 a cup

I would of it have quaffed my fill.1

Martin, in his Western Isles, says of the islanders:
" Their ancient leagues of friendship were ratified
by drinking a drop of each other's blood, which was
commonly drawn out of the little finger. This bond
was religiously observed as a sacred bond ; and if
any person after such an alliance happened to
violate the same, he was from that time reputed
unworthy of all honest men's conversation."2

1 The original of the last stanza I quote from memory :

Chuir iad a cheann air ploc daraich

agus 4hoirt iad fhuil mu lar ;
Nan robh agam-s' an sin copan

dh'olainn dith mo shath.

A version of the original is accessible in Rev. Maclean Sinclair's
Gaelic Bards.

2 Western Isles, p. 109 of ed. of 17 16.

32 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

The cro-codaig or blood-covenant was known
among the Gael of old. Thus BrandufT, king of
Leinster, in 598 a.d., as he was preparing to fight
the king of Ireland, met a party of Ulidians, whom
he induced to abandon the king of Ireland and fight
under BrandufFs own standard in the battle of
Dunbolg. The king of Ulidia replied : " A blood-
covenant (cro-codaig) and an agreement shall be
made between us." "They seated themselves on the
mountain and made a cotach or bond of fellowship
that should never be broken." The name of the
mountain, formerly Sliabh Nechtain, was afterwards
changed to Sliabh Codaig, ' the mountain-slope of
the covenant' — the present Slieve Gadae (the old
name slightly corrupted) on the road from Holly-
wood to Donard, Wicklow.

The Ulaid, hereditary enemies to the race of
Conn-of-the- Hundred- Battles, were glad to desert,
and Conchobar, their king, is said to have had a
vision regarding this blood-covenant, as is told in
the story of the Boromean tribute :

I beheld a vat of crystal, with splendour of gold.

By me, on the midst of my house, in Bregia, at the Boyne,

A third of the vat (was filled) with the bloods of men, strange

assembly !
There was but one third of new milk, in its midst,
Another third was noble (?) wine, strange to me !
Men with bowed heads surrounded it (men who had come over

a clear sea).1

Conchobar beheld the Leinster men and the Ulaid
around the vat, drinking its contents. "And I
know," said the king of the Ulaid, "that this is the

1 Rev. Celtiquey 13, p. 75.

THE BLOOD COVENANT 33

covenant that was foretold therein. For this is the
blood that was seen in the vat, — the blood of the two
provinces in meeting. This is the new milk — the
canon of the Lord, which the clerics of the two
provinces recite. This is the wine, Christ's Body
and His Blood, which the clerics offer up." And he
was explaining it in that wise, and he uttered a lay :

Make for us a covenant, let it be for ever !

With the ' trees of wine,' with the kings from Liffey.1

The poet Spenser relates that during his stay in
Ireland he saw a woman at Limerick drink the
blood of her foster-son on his having been executed.
He saw her " take up his head whilst he was being
quartered, and suck up the blood that ran from it,
saying that the earth was not worthy to drink it, and
steep her face and breast with it, at the same time
tearing her hair, and crying out and shrieking most
terribly." And we have Highland evidence. In a
song composed to a Macdonald warrior after the
battle of Cairinish in 1601, his foster-mother sings :

Thy body's blood flagrantly

a-soaking thy linen
And I myself sucking it

till hoarse were my breath.

Another singer says :

Thy wounds I did staunch

and many were they;
Thine heart's blood I drank, —

sweeter than wine, I will say.

And in a well-known Hebridean song to Ailean
Donn there is a direct mention of blood-drinking :

ijb. 13,75-
c

34 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

" I could drink, though to the aversion of others, not
of the red wine of Spain, but of the blood of thy
body after being drowned."1

Irish references pointing to the idea of the soul in
the blood may be met with, as we read of bursts of
blood from the tips and nostrils of the man who
knew that King Eochaid had the ears of a horse ;2
of a swelling" which grew from the head of the lad
who knew the secret of King Labraid's ears ; 3 of
washing in the blood of a king for leprosy.4 And
the late Dr. Wilde, in his account of Irish folk-
remedies, mentions the blood of the Welshes as well
as that of the Keogrhs and Cahills as a cure.5 In
Lewis blood taken from above the patient's ankles
was given as recently as in 1909 with a view to
curing epilepsy, — an instance I formerly only ten-
tatively included in the Appendix to my treatment
of the No7rse Influence on Celtic Scotland, but I am
aware that it need not be due to any outside influence
although blood-brotherhood is likewise met with in
Scandinavia. Du Chaillu, in his Viking Age (ii. 64),
quotes from Egil and Asmund's Saga (ch. 6), and
says : "They took oaths that whoever lived the longest
should have a mound thrown up over the other, and
place therein as much property as seemed to him

1 The original words are :

Dh' olainn deoch ge b'oil le each e
Cha b'ann dh'fhlon dearg na Spainne,
Dh' fhuil do chuim 's tu 'n deidh bathadh.

2 Otia Mersiana, iii. 48.

3 Rev. Celt. ii. 197.

4 Keating's Hist, of Ireland (Irish Texts Soc), i. 323 ; cf. what
Keating says of the Druids, id. 349.

5 Wilde, Irish Popular Super stitions, pp. 92-93.

THE BLOOD COVENANT 35

fitting, and the survivor had to sit with the dead one
for three nights, and then depart if he liked. Then
both drew their blood and let it flow together ; this
was then regarded as an oath." Blood-brotherhood
in the Highlands was not extinct at least until after
Iain Lom's time ; for tradition has it that by origin
he was not of Lochaber lineage, but that owing to
a peculiar circumstance his father fled to Lochaber
from Argyll and made blood -brotherhood {fuil-
bhraithreachais) with the Campbells' deadly enemies,
the Macdonalds. Iain Lorn Macdonald was Gadhelic
poet laureate to Charles II. I am now only con-
cerned with the tradition that blood-brotherhood was
practised in his age, even if the story in detail may,
at least at a first consideration, be at variance with
the poet's received pedigree.

It is said that the poet had no hair at his birth,
nor afterwards, and that accordingly he was given
the epithet lorn, or * bare, without hair/ Such
cases are rare, but I know personally of one.
Briefly, the story is that Iain Lom's mother was
a MacCalmain from Muckairn, who married one
Campbell, who resided near to or in Kilmartin,
Argyll. This Campbell in a quarrel stabbed another
Campbell who, on his round as deachadoir or tithe-
collector, insulted Mrs. MacCalmain Campbell. The
upshot was that she and her husband fled and took
refuge with the Campbells' enemies, and specially
under the banner of Macdonell of Keppoch, who
initiated them into his own clan by the rite of
blood-brotherhood (rinn tad fuil-bhraithreachais
riutha). The child born to them soon thereafter
was the future Iain Lorn Macdonald the poet, and

36 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

named after the Macdonalds. Said Keppoch to his
father : " The more Campbells you kill the better."
The poet became more Macdonald than the Mac-
donalds themselves.

This tradition I heard recited by Dr. Alex. Car-
michael at a meeting of Lome men in Glasgow,
when the lecturer was Mr. Malcolm Campbell
Macphail, the Glenorchy Bard, and a native of
Muckairn. It was accepted. And I take the tradi-
tion as pointing to the belief in the soul-in-the-blood,
which is the basis of the solemn covenant blood-
rites of many peoples. Stanley tells how he often
had to take part in the rite of blood-brotherhood in
Africa, and Trumbull's Blood Covenant gives many
instances. Its force among the Irish of old is
apparent from The Wooing of Enter \ when Cuchu-
lainn wounded his love, Dervorgil, in the form of a
sea-bird, with a stone from his sling, he contracted
blood-brotherhood by sucking from the wound the
stone with a clot of blood round it. " I cannot wed
thee now," he said, " for I have drunk thy blood.
But I will give thee to my companion here, Lugaid
of the Red Stripes." x

The artificial tie of blood-brotherhood being
reckoned a barrier to marriage pertains to a matri-
archal stage of society, wherein descent is reckoned
on the mother's side, and where the father is not
reckoned as belonging to the kin of his children.2
The father is not akin to his child. It is the ethic
of this stage that is reflected in such a tale as
Conlaoch killing his own father Cuchulainn : the

Eleanor Hull, The Cuchidlin Saga, p. &>.

2 S. Hartland, Primitive Paternity, vol. i. p. 261 (Folk-Lore Society).

THE BLOOD COVENANT 37

son avenges his mother's kin upon his own father.
It is a stage which has its own strata of explana-
tions of such things as conception, generation and
the origin of the soul. The custom of foster-brother-
hood conceivably may have had its origin herein :
the child is put out to be fostered among its mother's
kin, and out of the father's house. Until capable
of bearing arms it is taboo for the child to appear
in his father's presence : it is prohibited for the
warrior to have any sympathetic association with
the weakness of youth. Even the marriage-ring
might be held to be a remnant of some old custom
of binding the blood-covenant upon the hand.

Among certain savages the strip cut off at cir-
cumcision is bound on the arm ; and in the Jewish
ritual some of the blood mingled with wine is quaffed
by the operating priest. What is tasted by man
is a covenant-sign for deity. Clay Trumbull * says :
" Even down to modern times, the rite of circum-
cision has included a recognition, however un-
conscious, of the primitive blood-friendship rite, by
the custom of the ecclesiastical operator, as God's
representative, receiving into his mouth, and thereby
being made a partaker of, the blood mingled with
wine, according to the method described among
the Orientals, in the rite of blood-friendship, from
the earliest days of history."

In Ireland of long ago, I have read somewhere
that a usual gift from a woman to her betrothed
husband was a pair of bracelets made of her own
hair, as if a portion of her very self entered into

1 The Blood Covenant, p. 219, quoting Buxtorfs Synagoga Judaica,
c. ii.

38 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

the covenant rite. The blood especially was the
very self. It is this belief that explains the idea
that the corpse of a murdered man bleeds in the
presence of, especially at the touch of the slayer.
There are references throughout the literature of the
Middle Ages to the bleeding-corpse or cruentatio.
It occurs in the Nibelungenlied. And in the Ivain
of Chretien de Troies, there occurs a scene where
the corpse is brought into the hall where Ivain is,
and then begins to bleed, whereupon the men feel
confident that the murderer must be hidden there,
and they renew their search. The soul is regarded
as speaking through or by the blood. In the
Highlands1 I feel confident that there are remnants
of such a belief, pointing back to a belief similar
to the thought of the Hebrews when they held
that "the blood is the life" (Deuteronomy xii. 23).
To be remembered, too, are Homer's expressions :
" The blood ran down the wound" {Iliad, xvii. 86) ;
" the life (^^yji) ran down the wound "(Iliad, xiv. 5 1 8).
A Greek, quoted by Aristotle (De Anima, i. 2, 19),
declared that the soul was the blood. The Arabs say
"the soul flows " (from the wound), i.e. he dies.

When associated with crime the stains of blood
are regarded in folklore as indelible. Let me give

*For other references, cf. Strack, Blutaberglaube, 1892, p. 125;
Christensen, Baarepr<\)ven, Copenhagen, 1900, investigates 'bier-
proof5 ; cf. Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths, i. 323. Herodotus (iii. 18)
speaks of the drinking of blood as the highest sanction of a treaty,
and alludes to it as an Arabian custom. Mohammed had to forbid
it as one of the heavy sins (Kremer, Studien zur verg. Kullur
Geschichte. p. 35). Stanley, the African traveller, speaks of ex-
changing blood through marks on each other's arms, after which
there was a treaty of peace, as firm as any made in Europe, he
thought.

THE BLOOD COVENANT 39

a piece of Inverness-shire folklore from my notes
of 2nd May, 1887. It illustrates other points as
well :

" There lived an hotelkeeper at B with his

wife and three children. Having made him drunk
with brandy and taken his head off with the axe,
she buried him among the brackens, and put his

clothes on the banks of Loch X . A search

was instituted, but the body could not be found.
There lived a godly minister not far away, and
he dreamed a dream, in which he saw the body
among the brackens. When the report was spread-
ing among the people, the wife had the body removed.
The people, however, were suspicious of her, and
their suspicions were confirmed by marks of blood
at the top of the stair ; however often the boards
were cleaned, or even renewed, the stains of blood
would appear. A letter-carrier was passing by one
evening at the inn. He put up there at her request,
as she wanted him to kill a goat in the morning.
She sent him to bed along with her two boys. He
slept ; but the boys awoke, and their scream startled
him out of sleep. They said that they saw some-
thing. But he slept off again. This was repeated,
and on the second occasion he went down to the
kitchen, where he found the woman sitting by the
firelight. She told him that she had never gone
to bed since her husband was lost. He then
twigged that the tat hatch, or revenant of the dead,
was in the house, and he went off.

u Now, the godly minister referred to owned a
white or grey horse ; its saddle was always kept
beside the entrance door, to which the horse would

4o THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

come of its own accord, and as often as he did
so the minister accepted it as a beckoning from God
to go and make known His ways to men.

" The minister mounted on this occasion, and
followed to where the horse led, and he arrived

at the church of B . This church was a barn,

which had a gable of matted willow twigs in which
there was a breach. The woman referred to sat
outside this breach, with a shawl on her head and
with her back to the man of God. In course of his
sermon the minister stopped : ' I cannot proceed
any further,' he said, ' I have something else to
say ; there is a murderess in the congregation, and
she is troubling me.' He repeated himself, and
threatened to name her, — but the woman, being
outside, quietly left, as was afterwards found out.
On her deathbed she confessed the whole, and
related that one day as she was out herding she
saw a number of small men playing around her,
the husband among the number ; he came up to
her and gave her a blow, which left on her a blue
mark, of which she died. The mark was visible
after death."

On the occasion of witnessing an execution there
was a special rite to prevent dreams of the dead :
to dream of the dead was the next step to their
coming back as revenants. When Alex. Mackintosh
of Borlum was executed at Muirfield (for an assault
on one M'Rory, a Beauly cattle-dealer who was
suspected of having wrongly identified his assailant,
and who afterwards was an outcast in Beauly, where
he took his own life), we learn how " with mingled

THE BLOOD COVENANT 41

feelings of sorrow and horror the multitude slowly
and silently dispersed, many, if not most of the
company, placing a small piece of bread under a
stone, which, according to a superstitious tradition,
would prevent after-dreams of the unfortunate
Alexander Mackintosh."1

Blood innocently shed might readily call out for
vengeance ; for the soul was in the blood.

In the etiquette of paying one's parting respects
to the dead, before the corpse is buried, no custom
is more tenacious in the Highlands than that of
touching the body with the finger. To neglect
doing so is thought to expose a person to dreaming
of the deceased, and by consequence to the danger
of being visited by the dead, and of being open to
the dread haunting of the ghost. This is the relic
of the old ordeal upon the corpse of the murdered —
a custom not confined to present Gaeldom, but
current in a wider area. For instance, the minister
of Pitsligo testifies : " The opinion prevailed till not
very long ago, and even yet lingers, that in case of
murder, if the murderer touches the corpse, blood
flows from the wounds."2 To touch the body is
therefore a sort of folk-ritual to signify that one is
at peace with the deceased. In a case of murder,
there is a noted instance on record in the Highlands.
Let me quote :

" A singular providence, under presidency of the
minister, Mr. James Fraser, for the discovery of

Quoted from Celtic Monthly in Inverness Northern Chronicle \
1 6th August, 1905.

2 Rev. Walter Gregor's Folk Lore 0/ North-East of Scotland, 1881,
p. 208.

42 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

the murderer of Donald Mackwilliam Chui (i.e.
Dhuibh):1

" The signal providence that appeared in this
matter was, that though the dead body had layn
upon the sod within the flood mark, and the sea
ebbed and flowed six times during its being there,
yet not taken away. Upon the 3rd day the herds-
men bringing up their cattle discovered the dead
man, hasted in to the place, found it was their
neighbour, Donald Mackwilliam Chui, murthered. . . .
All the people presently flockt to the place, and
perceiving that he had been three days missed,
and his corps lying upon a flat piece of the bank
within the flood, wondered that the sea ebbing did
not drive him away, the wind being southerly all
the time. But the hand of God was in it to discover
the murther of the innocent. The corps is carried
to the churchyard, and laid in the common reer with
the chapel, and a despatch sent express to the
Shirref Deput, Alexander Chisholm, living in Bun-
chrive, who peremptorly convenes the whole parish,
causes strip naked the corps, and lay it exposed
upon a broad plank at the entry of the chappel,
and chairs set round ; and all the gentlemen of the
3 parishes present, concluding that this murder was
an act of malice and revenge, and not of gain or
lucre, the poor young man being but a servant and
had no great trust. The list of the parishioners
being read, every one as he was called touched the
bare body, laying his hand on it, non of quhat
degree soever excepted, men and women to the

1 Wardlaw MS. pp. 516-521 of Scottish Texts Society, edited by
William Mackay, p. 517.

THE SOUL IN THE BLOOD 43

number of 6 or 700. At length, the murtherer, John
Mackeanvore, laid his hand most confidently upon
the bare breast, and I narrowly observed (sitting at
the head of the coffin) that the greatest wound
opened and a drop of blood gushed out. I desired
he should lay on his hand again, which he did, and
men observed a drop of blood issue from the nose.
He is suddenly seized and fettered, brought in to
the church, and after serious prayer for the discovery
of this horrid work of darkness, he is examined and
a torture threatened ; but no confession. His mit-
timtis , signed, and sent in to the vault of Inverness,
and secured. Not one man or woman within my
parish of Wardlaw, after reading the catalogue, was
missed but John Mackeanire, who was seen to go
hastily through Kingily and over the burn, as the
people were convening for trial, and so escaped.
He was seen and known at the Bridge end of
Inverness, buying ground tobacco in papers, and
so away through Strathnairn, and over the bridge
of Dulce in to Strathspey ; and no account of him
for two years.

"John Mackeanvore, the capital murtherer, being
in the pit at Inverness, laid fast in the stocks, con-
tinued there but about a fortnight, and both his feet
down from the ancles dropt off as if by amputation.
When he is brought forth he had a foot in every
hand like a shoe last, cursing and imprecating, and
praying God to revenge his cruel usage ; so that
many condemned the judge as too severe, and
seemed to vindicate this villain, who is carried away
in a sledge through the streets and over the bridge
home to his own house in Finask, where his wife

44 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

and friends attend him ; falling in a fever is every
Sabbath prayed for as for death, and that God
wd discover this murther. ... In fine, I myself
out of charity, cured this John Mackeanvore's
wounds, untill at last his stumps were as strong as
men's fists, without feet ; and a contribution made
for buying him a horse, and goes up and down the
country confidently as an innocent, begging, and no
account of John M'Keanire, who is reputed by all
men to be the murtherer, having run for it as guilty;
and we are in suspense for two years; the land of
Finask (interim patitur Justus) blasted upon, neither
crop nor cattle thrive : Innocuus clamat sanguis ;
(innocent) blood cries."1

In the Isle of Man it is unlucky to let blood,
especially that of a king or person of high rank, fall
on the ground. Moore2 states: " It is remembered to
this day that when Iliam Dhone, William Christian,
was shot at Hango Hill in 1662, blankets were
spread where he stood, so that not one drop of his
blood should touch the earth." It is thought that
this may have some sacrificial meaning ; the intent
of the act springs from the idea of the soul in the
blood.

For the wide-spread character of this belief else-
where, the reader need only turn to Scott's Fair
Maid of Perth (c. 23) with his note on the case
which came before the High Court of Justiciary at

xThe minister quotes Genesis § Numbers %£- to show that only
blood can atone for blood. John M'Keanire at the end of two years
was discovered ; he confesses ; he was compelled to the deed by John
Mackeanvore, — both were hung near the parish church of Wardlaw,
the present Kirkhill, Clunes, Inverness.

2 Folk- Lore of the Isle of Man, p. 145.

THE SOUL IN THE BLOOD 45

Edinburgh in 1688; to the Lay of the Nib lungs,
where by this ordeal Kriemhild fastened upon
Hagan the guilt of murdering her husband Sieg-
fried ; x in the sixteenth century Christian II. of
Denmark, by commanding those present to place
their right hand on the breast of the slain, brought
about the detection and confession of the murderer,
who was at once beheaded.2

An analogous practice is that of swearing on the
skull, of which a case is reported at a recent criminal
trial in Germany.3

Alongside of the blood or body-essence observa-
tion falls to be directed to the breath, likewise an
essence. The soul is held to be especially in the
breath. Breath has long ago been supposed to be
the only part of man which will survive him.4
Breathing accompanies life. An old Highland
expression I have heard used by one lamenting a
mother's death signifies : ' her breath is not before
me';5 at death I have heard it said that the soul left
the body in the form of a white vapour or smoke,6
— expressions paralleled elsewhere, as among the
Slavs.7 The regular Highland expression for

1 Lettsom's translation, p. 183.

2 Benson's Remarkable Trials, p. 94".

3 Scotsman, March 8, 1907.

4 Sola ex omnibus superfutura, Pliny's Nat. Hist. lib. II, c. 53.

5 Chan eil a h anail romham.

6 Mar cheo no mar thoit gheal.

7 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 116 ; for soul thought of
as breath, wind, vapour, cf. Skr. atmd?i cognate with O.H.G. dtiim,
breath, soul ; Irish athach, breath. Modern Greeks speak of the soul
at death escaping through the mouth, ' with the soul between one's
teeth,' while i/a'x*/ at times denotes 'stomach' — Abbott's Greek
Folk- Lore, 193°.

46 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

1 yielding the ghost, giving up the breath in death '
is : 'thug e suas an deo.'1 The Indo-European root
of deb signifies • to breathe ' : we may perhaps infer
from the connotation of the various cognates that
the transition of meanings would have been in the
following series : breath, soul, soul of the dead,
daimon, god. From the same root is the Gaulish
dusios, 'daemon immundus, incubus; nightmare';
these Gaulish dusii were impure demons believed to
have commerce with mortals, and are referred to by
St. Augustine. We see thus that the root in one case
yields a word restricted in meaning to the personal
breath or soul, whereas in other tongues it connotes
a demon, or, as with the Greeks, the god-soul, in its
final sense God. When the Highlanders speak of
the ' double,' the word is samhl, samkla, a word of
like origin with G. samhuil, ' likeness, like,' cognate
with Latin similis, English same : the ' double ' is
vaguely described as a semi-transparency in which
the chief features of one dying or dead are recognis-
able by the eye : physiologists might regard the
4 double ' as due to optical illusion. As a fact it is
firmly believed that a ghost may be seen ; I recollect

1 Cognate with G. deb, breath, are Lithuanian dwesui dwesti, to breathe;
dwds'e, breath, spirit ; diisas, vapour. Schrader connects Latin Feralia,
from a proto-Italic * dhvesdlia, a festival in honour of the dead, also
probably L. feriae for *dhvesiae, feralis, belonging to the dead or
underworld, and festus. Certain is the connection with Lithuanian
dausos, in plural meaning 'the air' ; Lettic, dwascha, breathe, breath ;
Greek, foo's, god, from &/W6? (Brugmann). From a long form of
the root, *dhues, comes the Middle High German ge-twas, ghost ;
Lettic dvesele, soul, life, breath (with which Walde would connect the
Latin bestid). From *dhu, another form of the root, come Lithuanian
dustu, dusau, ' aufkeuchen ' ; diisas, sigh ; dushi, to gasp ; Lettic
dusu, dust, ' aufkeuchen.'

THE DOUBLE 47

a case where a woman went out one moonlit night to
draw water from the well : on looking behind her
she saw her own image or ghost (samhl) covered by
a winding sheet, with the face veiled. This may be
read by physiologists under the idea of the soul-
image, or memory-image personified.

Any collection of instances of Second- Sight will
give numerous cases where an apparition (taibhse)
or vision has been thought to have been seen, and to
the imagination these phantoms are real. They are,
as the root of taibhse implies, things which ' show
or speak,' with the folk-belief reservation that such
ghosts cannot speak until they are first spoken to.
As regards speech, the control remains with man.
Through touch, however, they reveal themselves as
dangerous ; when parting with one they may leave
a blue mark on the body, and as a precaution when
travelling at night one must keep to the side and
away from the middle of the highway so as not to
obstruct their path. There may, according to folk-
thought, be even a procession of ghosts as in
phantom funerals. The ear no less than the eye is
appealed to ; it is a firm belief, or was in my child-
hood, that the shrieking of ghosts may be heard :
when the ghost crossed over water it shrieked, or
gave a yell, resounding through the rocks and
woods, which was termed sga/, a word akin to the
German schallen, • to sound.' I heard it said of a
ghost's yell on the way to a cemetery : bha a sga/ a
toirt fuaim air na creigean 's e 'tighinn sfos Ailean-
an-Uchd, i.e. its shriek was resounding through the
rocks as it was coming down Ailean-an-Uchd (the
Mead or Green of the Brae, Brae-field). Another

48 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

phrase is: glioir an tasc1^ the ghost yelled. Be-
sides deo,2 which is the more spiritual aspect of the
breath, or the breath as conjoined to the soul, there
is another word anail, breath, Old Irish anal, Welsh
anadl, anal, from a root an, to breathe ; Gothic anan,
to breathe ; Sanskrit anila, wind. Differentiated
therefrom is G. anam, soul ; Old Irish anim (dative
anmin), Cornish enef, Breton ene, plural anaoun, ' the
souls, the dead ' ; cognate with Latin animus, anima,
Greek we/mos, 'wind.' Thus, by abstraction from the
actual visible warm breath (deo) and the agent of
the breath (anail), one attains to the idea anam (or
soul), which we attain to consciousness of through
the body.

It is the essence of man that he came to think of
self as something different from the body : how man
came first to think and speak of himself as some-
thing different from the body is an improper
question to put. From the side of body our being
is mortal : hence fitly spoken of in Gadhelic as
duine, ' man,' a word cognate with Greek 6v*it6$,
1 mortal'; English dwine. As sentient, percipient,
thinking agent, he is anam, ' soul,' the energy which
discovers itself in the breath, the vital motion, the
inner impulse which in our consciousness is given us
in breath. Here it is of interest to compare with
L. anima, G. anam, Gr. anemos, 'wind,' the force of
the Sanskrit dsu, ' the breath of life in men and
animals,' cognate with Norse anses, souls of an-
cestors worshipped as gods, meeting us in the

1 Here tannasg, apparition, is either shortened or confused with Ir.
tdsc, report, etc.

2 Spiorad, ' spirit,' is a loan from L. spirt f us.

THE SOUL IN THE BREATH 49

A sen, the highest Norse gods, and in the Anglo-
Saxon e'se, the lower spiritual beings, the elves.
Parallel in concept, though from a different root, is
the meaning discoverable in English soul ; German
Seek, Gothic saiwala, which Persson * equates with
Old Bulgarian si-la, force, power ; Lithuanian sy-la,
force, power; Prussian sei-lin, zeal, industry, exertion,
effort ; plural sei- litis, mind ; seilisku, devotion ; no-
sei-lis, spirit : even were the Lithuanian and Prussian
loaned from Slavonic, the roots set, sat, si, convey
the idea ( set in motion, let go.' When the energy,
the inner impulse in the breath had departed, people
could not but feel that all had gone, and thus the
breath, the soul-in-the-breath, the inner-impulse-in-
the-breath supplied the material which thought
came to examine further in course of time. The
soul was named from a something which it possesses,
as an attribute in common with a function of the body.
When death ensues one of the phrases is : shinbhail
e, 'he went off,' the word siubhal being used usually
for 'walking,' and cognate with Welsh chwyfu,
'move, stir,' thus amounting to 'he moved off, he
stirred,' and in keeping with the parallel phrase
chaochail e, 'he changed,' i.e.=he died, a current
Highland expression.

The transition from breath-impulse to the divine
through the idea of breath, soul, soul of the dead,
daimon, God, may be made by a different path of
thought. Just as soul is always given us with

1 Bezz. Beitrdge, 19, 276; cf. ib. 21, 212, where Mikkola equates
Gothic saiwala with O. Bulg. sila, force, energy, power ; Prussian
seilin, exertion, effort, zeal, from * seild, se((u)/, — the primary root in
Servian do-sin-uti se, ' potiri ' from *sei(%-n-.

50 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

consciousness of the body, and is thus descriptively
the idea of the body, so is also the world-body, and
especially are the shining heavens prominent as a
part thereof: thus is the Gadhelic Dia, 'God,'
cognate with Latin Deus (met with also in y^-piter),
Norse Tiw, ' the war-god,' tivar, 'gods' ; Sanskrit devd,
Greek S109, ' divine '; Zeus, who in Greek has various
epithets, as at Dodona, where the official title was
Zevs Naib?, ' the stream god ' ; at Sidon OaXaaronog,
according to Hesychius, whence it follows that
he was there a sea-god ; Pausanias states that
Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, applies the name of
Zeus also to the god who dwells in the sea, — all
which illustrate local transitions to sea-god from the
original sky-god, the bright shining heavens. The
Germanic races which, as we have seen, use a
different root to express ' soul ' from that used in
Celtic, — although the concept in both seems to
embrace the common element of ' motion,' — have
also a different root to express that of God, German
GotL According to the late W. Thomsen, of
Copenhagen, the name means 'He to whom
sacrifice is made, He who is worshipped'; Professor
Hoffding1 thinks of a relationship between the root
in God and that in giessen, 'to pour,' with Greek
X*eLV, whose root xv ls taken as cognate with Sanskrit
hu, whence huta, 'sacrificed,' also 'he to whom
sacrifices are made.' A proto- Indo-European
form for God, *ghutomy Schrader has defined as
' the divine element called forth by a charm from
the deified phenomena,' and this word is taken as
cognate with Sanskrit, huta, 'called,' A vesta zavaiti,

1 Phil, of Religion, p. 396.

THE SOUL IN THE BREATH 51

* he curses ' ; Lithuanian zaweti, ' to charm/ x This
would harmonise with the derivation of religio,
'religion,' from L. religare, 'to bind,' in the sense of
what a man binds on the deity acknowleged by him.

Both paths are animistic, i.e. they read phenomena
in terms of the soul. Both acknowledge the worship
of spirits : the Latins worshipped the manes, a word
cognate with the Old Latin mdnus, 'good,' hence
'the good spirits' of ancestors; the Celts worshipped
the side,2 known also as na daoine niaith, ' the good
people ' — all vaguely subordinated to the ancestral
spirit, God. All that is the work of and under the
protection of so exalted a power is to the Celt holy
or naomh ; Early Irish ndem, nded, which includes
perhaps the idea of what is beautiful, whether the
word be cognate with Old Persian naiba, ' beautiful/
or as Bezzenberger less probably suggests, with
Lettic naigs, ' quite beautiful.'

It will be sufficient provisionally to describe the
chief forms of soul-cult, not forgetting the existence
of various modifications and transitions, as :

1. Primitive Animism, which includes most primi-
tive phases. Here account is taken of all phases of
the body-soul and of the shadow-soul. The recog-
nition of ' soul ' as in the various bodily parts has
been treated of above ; the shadow-soul has to be
added. The shadow (faileas) is at this stage in
intimate association with the soul. As a develop-
ment of this thought is the danger of allowing one's
likeness to be taken : I have known old people who

lv. Schrader's article on Aryan Religion in Hastings, Ency. of
Religion and Ethics.

2<Tuatha adortais side' — Old Irish Hymn ascribed to Fiacc.

52 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL ,

had great aversion to having their likeness taken : it
felt to them as if their souls were being abstracted,
and any harm done to the likeness might result in
harm to the person. On a par are all practices
founded on the belief in evil influences from the
magic of the living (witchcraft). The sorcerer, in
Manx termed by the native designation fear obaidh,
has soul-powers ascribed to him whereby he is held
to cause illness, madness, death. Rites such as
those connected with the ' clay-body ' (corp criadh)
and with turning of the heart in lead, and spells of
all kinds are in vogue ; the ' word ' is all-powerful ;
rites such as touching the corpse and placing of
water on the hearth after a death (as was done in
Tiree, according to my authority, about 60 years
ago), and perhaps the belief in the grave-guardian
or literally the ' churchyard watch ' (an fhaire
chlaidh), indicate that religious cult was concerned
chiefly with means of protection against the souls of
the dead who could ' come back ' (tathaicJi) and as
revenants work their evil will. Under this idea, and
the cult to be inferred, one might subsume the rites
connected with the ' sin-eater ' in Wales, springing
out of that of eating in common with the deceased ;
more widely, all forms of communion, the earliest
forms of sacrifice.

2. Animalism and Manism, of which Totemism is
but a definite grade arising out of sympathetic
association. The beliefs centre in the idea of the
external soul ; these will be treated of in the next
chapter. So far as rites arise, at the outset the
animal is in the foreground. The animal is on a
par, though as a rule above man. Animal descent

ANIMALISM AND MANISM 53

is inferable from certain personal and tribal names.
The favour or displeasure of the animal is kept
before the thought, and thus arises the cult of
various particular animals, which may figure as
protecting spirits. Of the Totemistic system, which
is widely traceable among the tribes of Australia,
Africa and America, we could hardly expect to find
clear survivals among the Aryan family. For the
Aryans I am prepared to discard Totemism alto-
gether. Mr. Frazer has lately inclined to deduce
that system from a savage theory of conception,
which is too abstract. Its essence lies in sympathetic
association, which allows of a tribe having regard to
some mutual help and protection it may have come
to believe as real between itself and some animal.
Thus in the Highlands a serpent was thought of as
incapable of doing harm to a true member of the
clan Iver, — parallel to the immunity from snakes
claimed by a snake clan (Ophiogenes) in Cyprus. As
animal kinship is the essence of Totemism, and not
its later social organisation, I submit in dealing with
the Aryans that Animalism shading into Manism
represents a phase of social belief. The feeling of
a tribe's kinship with certain animals need not have
been arrived at among all races in the same way.

The serpent, the deer, the horse, the wolf, are all
in this category ; e.g. a Welsh belief seems to have
been that all lizards were formerly women ; ! every
farmhouse had two snakes : " They never appeared,
until just before the death of the master or mistress
of the house ; then the snake died." Here may be

1 Trevelyan, Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories of Wales, p. 165 ; cf. the
veneration for snakes in Lithuania.

54 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

recalled the rite of pounding the embers from a peat
fire in one's stocking at the threshold, on the outer
door-step, on St. Bride's day,1 — the operant finally
saying, " I shall not injure the serpent nor shall the
serpent injure me." The old Lochaber hunter,
Domhnull Mac Fhionnlaidh, was buried at his re-
quest in the skin of the last deer slain by him.2
And quite lately, in a Highland Deer Forest, a case
came to my notice of a workman who, when engaged
on repairing a cottage, sat down to take his meal
outside at mid-day when a hind passed by, narrowly
scanned him, and having entered the house went up
the stair and refused to be ejected, with the result
that the man took fright and came out for aid,
expressing himself to the effect that it was the spirit
of a former occupant, now deceased, that had come
back in deer guise.

This was no totemistic death ceremony, but it
shows a subtle sympathy with the deer ; the stag
has always been a symbol of delight and of enjoy-
ment. It is thus far parallel to the Black Shoulder
(Buffalo) clan of the Omahas wrapping a dying
clansman in a buffalo robe with the hair out, his face
painted with the clan mark, and thus addressed by
friends : " You are going to the animals (the buffaloes).
You are going to rejoin your ancestors."

That instance of belief in transmigration occurred
last year. At this stage of thought certain tribes
may have one animal which they tacitly own as
ancestral spirit. By the use of any animal name as

1 Cf. Dr. Carmichael's Carinina Gadelica.

*The Gael, vol. v. ^ip^DWbrduich e a thiodhlaiceadh am bian
anfheidh sin.

ANIMALISM AND MANISM 55

an emblem of kinship, the individual would indicate
to what tribal community he belonged ; tribal names
such as that of the Ossorians in Ireland allow us to
infer the former existence of such a belief among the
Celts : " The descendants of the wolf are in Ossory."
The treatment must be left for the following chapter.
The second phase of this stage of thought would
be a cult of human ancestors, specially of tribal
chiefs and clan-heroes : this is Manism or Ancestor
Worship proper, culminating in hero worship. It is
a subject for future investigation ; it is to be noted
that the characteristics pertaining to a particular clan
or tribal community, which mark ancestor worship,
will have fallen very much to the background if they
can be at all inferred among the Celts ; the relations
emphasised will be found pertaining to mythologic
concepts and to the Nature-Myth. For, as modifica-
tions and transitions in behalf are constant, ancestor
worship gets partly transcended. But in Manism
the guardian spirit has its specific influence on
the tribal consciousness. I recollect Aoibhell of
Craig Liath, the guardian spirit of the Dal Caiss,
mentioned in the narrative concerning Brian Boru
in the Wars of the Gaedhel and the Gall ; there is
also Mag Molach or Hairy Hand, and Bodach An
Diiin of Rothiemurchus, as well as the more familiar
belief in the Brownie which renders offices of help
in some houses, — a feeble survival of early phases of
cult. The central thought is that of Guardian Spirit
and comes out in Macrimmon's Lament :

Dh'iath ceo nan stuc mu aodann Chuilinn
Is sheinn a bhean-shidh' a torman mulaid.

i.e. " The mist has enfolded the peaks of the Coolin

56 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

and the Banshee has sounded her wail of sorrow."
In the Highlands of old the ghosts flitted about if
the coronach or funeral threnody were unsung ; the
other side is, when the banshee calls she sings the
spirit home. In some houses still a soft low music
is heard at death.

3. Daimonism. Here daimonic influences are
recognised wherein there is individual consciousness
connecting the thought of guardian spirit with
localities. From the rites followed at Loch Mo-Nair,1
Strathnaver, one may infer a former belief in a guar-
dian spirit presiding over healing; generally at sacred
wells the later Christian saints have succeeded to,
and supplanted the memories of, the pre-Christian
guardian spirits. There are spirits of localities, and
among the Celts of Gaul we find traces of such as
daimons protecting and avenging thermal springs,
agriculture and commerce. Irish mythology has
instances to show, e.g. Dian Cecht, as to whom
compare Rhys's Hibbert Lectures on Celtic Heathen-
dom. Primitive soul-concepts begin to be lost sight
of and the qualities of the demons or daimons corre-
spond to those of individual souls : the result is that
Water-, Wind-, Vegetation- or Local Spirits, as met
with in the Dindshenchus or stories of Place- Names,
all border on the Nature Myth, and personify some
aspect of Nature as such. For example, the High-
land stories of Cailleach Bhearra, the Old Woman
of Beare, of whom later.

To return now : with the idea of what is tabu or

1 The stress is on Nair, not on the preceding Mo, which is a suffix of
endearment. The accent is quite different from that in Loch Monar
in Ross-shire, which has the stress on the first syllable.

GESSA 57

prohibited, or bound under 'restrictions' (fo gheasa),
there is connected fear, the fear of breaking the
magic word, fear also before the working of demonic
powers. In the totem-animals, which a universal
survey of comparative human beliefs leads us to
subsume as a phase of Manism, primitive man saw
the souls of persons, of ancestors migrated. Rites
wherein survivals of this exist may be expected to
issue in a code which puts the individual on his
guard against angering the spirits. My forest friend
inferred a ' spirit ' in the hind, and felt he was for-
bidden from repairing the old house for the successor.
To another individual's consciousness the spirit might
have been in a tree or bird, or even house. It is the
sympathetic association of the moment that counts.

One of my acquaintances was suddenly seized by
great hunger after passing a certain house : he came
up to an old woman, who remarked on his pallid
looks : " You have passed a house where people sat
and partook of food without having asked a blessing."
The individual confessed having passed such and
such a house ; then his old friend gave him a small
piece of bread which she blessed ; he partook, and
the ravenous craving disappeared.

Or take the case of a boy who goes to an even-
ing's entertainment in Highland hamlets, where he
hears lots of ghost stories ; he stays until it is late
and very dark ; if he must come home alone and
have to pass lonely roads and places shadowed with
trees, or streams where he has heard it said at the
cMidh that dogs were seen which tore such and
such folks in former times to death, the chances are
that he will see more than is good for him : sympa-

58 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

thetic association renders this inevitable, and the
conditions being favourable most lads will experience
a presence that is uncanny, a feeling of the eerie.
How much more in earlier ages when every birth
revealed a ' return ' ; if raising of the name (togail
an ainm) be still reckoned as of import, as I know
it to be, much more is the reality of life itself : the
child is seen to resemble not its immediate parents
but some grand-parents or other relative or ancestor:
how account for this ? Nature is believed as full of
spirits : it is not death that needs accounting for, it
is life itself: the mother forms her own inferences
wherever she may chance to experience the feeling
of quickening, and readily forms a sympathetic asso-
ciation with some object or other at the place and
time. A spirit part of some ancestor, she believes,
has entered her : a soul has become incarnate.

This would in early ages have been the explana-
tion on the male side of what now exists but in
faint survival. I have known an instance, and I
have heard of two more, all far apart, where at
the birth of a baby the husband was believed to
suffer the pains of childbed. In one case the
husband was known to turn ill. I believe that such
a psychical peculiarity, though very rare, and of
great difficulty to verify, is traceable to the idea of a
spirit-part (or man-soul) leaving the parent and
being thought of as found in the child ; the latter s
gain was the father's loss. I am absolutely sure of
this belief having been known in the Highlands within
my own knowledge ; it was explained from a power
ascribed to certain wise mid-wives of transferring the
mother's pains to the father. I rather think it is

SIMULATIVE COUVADE IN GAELDOM 59

parallel to a belief concerning the first-born in the
Punjab : if a son, his father is said to be born again
in him, and he is supposed to die at the child's
birth ; in certain Khatri sections his funeral rites
are actually performed in the fifth month of the
mother's pregnancy. Rites now connected with
male childbed are known as the couvade. Only dim
reflections thereof are met with among the Celts.
For parts of Ireland it is on record that a woman
before childbirth occasionally wears the coat of the
father of the expected child with the idea that
the father should then share in the pains of birth.
The physician who reports it notes that the father
is carefully kept out of the way on these occasions,
and that " women in childbirth often wear the
trousers of the father of the child round the neck,
the effect of which is supposed to be the lightening
of the pains of labour. I have myself seen a case
of this in Dublin, about two years ago."1

In Man a wife must keep her husband's trousers
beside her in bed to prevent her infant being carried
off by the fairies (Moore, 157). There are only
very faint survivals apparently in Britain so far as
known. But Dr. Norris F. Davey reports in the
British Medical Journal for 26th Sept., 1891, p. 725,
thus : " . . . There was a doubt as to the date of
conception, but the husband confidently confirmed
the date of quickening because ' he felt so bad himself

1 Folk- Lore \ Sept. 1893, pp. 357, 359, 'The Women's War-of- Words
in the Feast of Bricriu ' alludes to the couvade. The Irish tale Cess
Noinden Ulad, 'the Nine Days' Debility (?) of the Ulidians,' may
reflect this practice among the Cruithne or Irish Picts, possibly
conjoined with the old custom of racing for a bride. Cf. Frazer's
Kingship, 261.

60 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

at that time.' He was very much hurt when I
ridiculed such an idea, and said, ' You may laugh,
doctor, but I always feel bad when that happens
without my wife saying anything about it ; and why
shouldn't I, as I am the father?' This civilised
savage (who, I think, came from Wiltshire) was
evidently a firm believer in the occult link, but it is
not an Essex belief, as I never met with any similar
fancy during the thirty-eight years' experience in
that county."

Attempts to shift the pains of childbirth from
the mother to the father have been instanced by
Mr. Frazer x from Ireland, Scotland, France,
Germany and Esthonia. For resorting to such
enchantments Eufame Macalyne was burned alive
on the Castle-hill at Edinburgh in 1 59 1. When
James VI. was born, a lady of rank, Lady Reirres,
complained " that she was never so troubled with
no bairn that ever she bare, for the Lady Athole
had cast all the pain of her child-birth upon her."
At Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, in 1772, Pennant
found a belief that " the midwives had power of
transferring part of the primeval curse bestowed on
our great first mother, from the good wife to her
husband. I saw the reputed offspring of such a
labour ; who kindly came into the world without
giving her mother the least uneasiness, while the
poor husband was roaring with agony in his uncouth
and unnatural pains."

Ling Roth quotes from a ' well-known Professor
of Philosophy,' who wrote to Timehri, ii. p. 160:
" If ever you make out the couvade, I suspect you

1 Totejnism and Exogamy, iv. 252.

SIMULATIVE COUVADE IN DUMFRIESSHIRE 61

will find that its first origin was a real sympathy
between husband and wife. I could tell you (if I
had space) one or two very odd stories, where,
during pregnancy, the husband, at a distance, was
invariably affected by sickness — vomiting in one
case. Such things are laughed at by the scientific,
but if testimony goes for anything (and perhaps it
does not), they are well established." The then
editor of Timehri, iii. p. 149, speaking of this
supposed real physico-sympathetic connection be-
tween a man and his wife, extracts the following
from the Academy : " In Mr. York-Powell's interest-
ing and able review of Grimm's Teutonic Mythology
{Academy, Feb. 23), reference is made to the
universal belief among our English and Irish
peasantry ' that a man will suffer from such ills as
are wont to accompany pregnancy, nausea, neuralgia,
and the like, if his wife be lucky enough to escape
them.' Just to show that folklore is in many cases
but a too free and illogical argument based on
facts, I may perhaps be allowed to say that I
am to-day acquainted with three persons, one living
in Sussex, one in London, and one in Northants,
who invariably suffer from neuralgia or vomiting
when their wives are enceinte, the ladies themselves
having a very happy time of it."

The folk-belief in question is not, however, due
to a too hasty generalisation from those coincident
ills York- Powell specifies. It is an aberrant form of
reasoning, but for the idea which grounds the belief
one can adduce parallels : the Central Australian
tribes believe that birth is a re-incarnation of
a spirit-part — that conception results from the

62 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

entrance of a spirit-part.1 The Irish survival of
wearing the trousers of the father can surely be only
a relic of an earlier rite, wherein the father was
credited with having birth-pains, and may be
paralleled among non- Aryans from S. India.

In southern India, where Telugu is spoken, the
wandering Erukala-vandhu observe the custom.
The Rev. John Cain writes in the Indian Antiquary
for May, 1874 (p. 151): " Directly the woman feels
the birth-pangs she informs her husband, who
immediately takes some of her clothes, puts them
on, places on his forehead the mark which the
women usually place on theirs, retires into a dark
room, where there is only a very dim lamp, and
lies down on the bed, covering himself with a long
cloth. When the child is born, it is washed and
placed on the cot beside the father ; assafoetida,
jaggery, and other articles are then given, not to
the mother, but to the father. During the days of
ceremonial uncleanness the man is treated as the
other Hindus treat their women on such occasions.
He is not allowed to leave his bed, but has every-
thing needful brought to him."

Tylor 2 shows that it exists among the Dravidians,
though not known as an Aryan Hindoo practice :
a man at the birth of his first-born son or daughter
by the chief wife, or for any son afterwards, will
retire to bed for a lunar month, living principally
on a rice diet, abstaining from exciting food and
from smoking ; at the end of the month he bathes,

1 Crawley's Tree of Life, p. 211 ; v. Spencer and Gillen's Native
Tribes of Central Australia.

2 Researches, 2nd ed. p. 301.

SIMULATIVE COUVADE IN DUMFRIESSHIRE 63

puts on a fresh dress, and gives his friends a feast.
Accompanying the couvade, we find restrictions as
to occupation, as to diet (even fasting), up to the
time the navel string falls off, or longer. The
rite implies religious scruple from the outset ;
there is more even than sympathetic association
with the feebleness of child-life; so far it implies
affection and self-sacrifice for the young life, and
acknowledges succession through the father, and
tends towards conjugal fidelity, though not strictly
restricted to monogamy. Far from being a farce
as such, it implicates some postulates of civilisation,
and from the first it implies a religious theory
embodied in rite. When it arises it is never felt as
fiction or symbolic pretence : it is as a survival,
not merely a sign and record of the change from
maternal to paternal society, but a dim foreshadow-
ing of future science, the knowledge of the real
actuality of fatherhood. Couvade is a rite or
custom that implicates some explanation of the
introduction of life into the world. It implies
sympathetic magic, as when a father diets him-
self from instinctive physical sympathy with the
new-born infant ; or by simulating child-birth it
relieves the real mother by magical transference
of pain.1

A digression may be allowed here. If there be
a rite to implicate some theory of the introduction
of life, such as that when you are born you are
a spirit-part of some ancestor, would not a rite be

JThe Highland phrase is : chuir i na piantan air an duine = 1' she
put the pains on the husband.' This transference is understood as
being due to the wife or else to the wise-woman who first attended her.

64 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

necessitated to show that death, or the extinction
of life, is due to the spirit or spirit-part of an
ancestor having assumed another form? Is an
ancestor thought of as being in the last dead,
and is the last dead thought of as being called to
defend his people at the place of burial until the
next death ? Is not what was ancestral spirit-part
at birth not likely to be an ancestral spirit-part at
death; and is not the last buried the guardian spirit,
perhaps awaiting re-incorporation ? Would not the
conception of An Fhaire Chlaidhy the belief that
the soul of the last buried keeps watch until the
next funeral comes to the churchyard and is grave-
guardian, fall in with such a view ? Instances
from the Highlands will be given in the fourth
chapter (cf. p. 35 as to ' sitting with the dead ').

The belief that even the bones of the dead could
be a source of paternity is traceable in the High-
lands. Sir Walter Scott, in his notes1 to Canto
III. of the Lady of the Lake, states that it was the
account in the Laird of Macfarlane's Manuscript
that suggested to him the idea of Brian the Hermit,
4 bred between the living and the dead'; and the
late Rev. A. Clerk, LL.D., minister of Kilmallie,
who speaks of the tale as " the above probable
story (!) of his (i.e. the child's) paternity," states
that " this account of him is still preserved in the
traditions of the place," that " the tradition still pre-
served in the country agrees exactly with the
account given by the old Laird, representing the
Gille Dubh (Black Lad) as an able and devout

lv. Scott's Poetical Works. Edin. MDCCCLI. Robert Cadell, St.
Andrew Square. Not all editions give this note in full.

BRIAN: HIS VIRGIN BIRTH 65

man, totally different from the savage seer depicted
in the poem." * Dr. Clerk writes the name as Gille
Dubk mac 'I lie Chnamklaick, or the Black Child,
Son of the Bones, "for such, unpronounceable as
it appears, is the true designation ; and though the
story may be familiar to many, we give the sub-
stance of it here as connected with the locality."
I rather think cnamhlack conveys the sense of
mouldering embers of fire, as in the phrase cnamh-
lack theine, but in either case the paternity is
attributed to the dead. To this child in later life
was attributed the building of the first church
at Kilmallie, which simply means that the spot
was sacred ere the introduction of Christianity.
There are large beech trees near now ; in
1746 the ash tree burnt down at Kilmallie was
the largest and most remarkable in Scotland,
being no less than 58 feet in circumference.
This gives additional presumption of ancient
sanctity.

Dr. Clerk tells how the young people of Corpach
and of Annat {i.e. mother-church) — two neighbour-
ing farms — were watching the cattle in the fold.
14 The place was a small hill a little to the west of
the present church, close to the public road, and
conspicuous from a clump of Scotch fir covering
its summit. It shews some faint traces of its having
been fortified as a stronghold, and its name, Cnoc-
na-Faobh, or the Hill of Spoils, tells of its having
been the scene of strife and of bloodshed. At the
period in question it was strewn with the bones of

1 A. Clerk, Memoir of Colonel John Cameron, Fassifearn, 2nd ed.

1858. Appendix, Note A.

66 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

the slain, left there to bleach under summer's sun
and winter's snow, which proves that the conflict
was between parties animated by the deadliest hate
toward each other ; for rarely indeed was such dis-
honour shewn to the dead in the Highlands." From
this point I crave leave to quote the Laird of
Macfarlane's 1 words: " The people report of a
battell focht in old tymes, hard by thar Church,
and how long after, hirds feeding ther cattell in that
place, in a cold season, made a fyre of dead men's
bones ther scattered, who being all removed except
one mayd who took up her cloaths and uncovered
hirself sum part here, a sudden whirlwind threw
sum of the ashes in her privie member. Whereupon
she conceaved and bore a sone called Gillie dow-
mak Chravolick, that is to say the black chyld sone
to the bones, who after becam learned and rel-
ligious and built this Churche which now standeth
in Kilmaillie."

The figure of Brian, whose story illustrates
Parthenogenesis or Virgin Birth, goes back on
Celtic tradition, wherein he figures as a demi-god.
He is a being to whom entreaty is made ; he is
referred to by a Badenoch poet, Lachlan Mac-
pherson of Strathmashie, who was born about 1723.
In a poem humorously descriptive of a certain
old gentleman's wedding, he says :

When all had assembled,

They of Brian entreated

That all might survive till their locks

Were grey as the bridegroom's.

1 Macfarlane's Geographical Collection, vol. ii. p. 520 (Scot. Texts
Soc), 1907, ed. by Sir Arthur Mitchell.

BRIAN: HIS VIRGIN BIRTH 67

The original of which is :

Nuair a thainig iad a nios
Rinn iad achanaich ri Brian
lad a bhi uile cho liath
Ri clabhag fhir na bainnse.

(Mackenzie's Sar-Obair Nam Bard, p. 263.)

Another song of about the reign of James VI., and
composed by his stepmother to Domhull Gorm
Macdonald, speaks of Brian in terms which put him
alongside of Cuchulainn, Ossian, Oscar ; and in a
context, where the strength of sea and sun are
invoked, so much so that Miss Tolmie notes Brian
as signifying ' Divine Power.' 1

A Highland sleep-blessing is to the following
effect :

I lie down to-night with mild Mary and her son,

With Michael the bright-white, and with Bride beneath

her mantle.
I lie down with God, and may God lie down with me;
I shall not lie down with Briain, and Briain shall not lie

down with me.2

Though similar sleep-blessings are current in Ireland,
Dr. Douglas Hyde3 remarks that he has never else-
where heard or seen ' this very curious expression,'

1 Miss F. Tolmie's ' Highland Folk Songs' ; it is given also in The
Gael. The significant lines are : Gun robh neart Chonchulainn leat|
Agus neart na Feinne | Neart Oisein bhig agus Osgair threuna | Neart
an daimh duinn as airde leumas] Neart nafairge thruime threubhaich|
Gun robh neart na cruinne leat | Agus neart na greine | Gun robh
Brian dhuit mar tha mise dhuit | Gu bheil mise mar dhearbh phiuthar
dhuit I S mur h-eil ni 's mo tha 'cheart uibhir | .

2 Luighim sios le Dia is luigheadh Dia lium
Cha luigh mi slos le Briain 's cha luigh Briain lium.

(Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica.)

3 Religious Songs of Connacht, vol. 2, p. 409.

68 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

..——■■ ,. . ■

— Briain, which now-a-days connotes something
similar to Satan. Though apparently forgotten in
Ireland, it is not yet extinct in the Isles. It there
bears the force of "angel, archangel, god, divinity,
hence god of evil; a term of exclamation. A
bhriain — xkiow. god; a bhriain Mhicheil = thou god
Michael." * The name Brian is met with in a poem
where St. Michael, as the Gaelic Neptune and patron
of the sea, is spoken of as Brian Michael ; in other
words, St. Michael, venerated among the Celts, has
taken the place of the deity Brian.

Thou wert the warrior of courage

Going on the journey of prophecy;

Thou wouldst not travel on a cripple,

Thou didst take the steed of Brian Michael,

He was without bit in his mouth,

Thou didst ride him on the wing,

Thou didst leap over the knowledge of Nature.2

Brian seems to have been in part a sea-god, whose
place was latterly taken by St. Michael, Michael of
the white steeds, who subdued the dragon. But
perhaps he was not always thought of in this aspect
any more than the Hellenic Zeus, who is a stream-
god (Naios) at Dodona and a water-god with the
epithet OaXao-o-ios at Sidon, instead of his usual place
as a sky-god.

1 Carm. Gad. ii. 232.

2Bu tu gaisgeach na misnich
Dol air astar na fiosachd
Is tu nach siubhladh air criplich
Ghabh thu steud Briain Mhicheil,
E gun chabstar 'na shliopan,
Thu 'ga mharcachd air iteig
Leum thu thairis air fiosrachadh Naduir.

(Quoted in Car?n. Gad. i. p. 200.)

BRIAN: THE PRE-CHRISTIAN MICHAEL 69

The whole figure of Brian — the Michael of pre-
Christian times — is rooted in Old Celtic thought ;l he
with his two brothers Iuchar and Uar belong to the
Tuatha De Danaan as gods of knowledge, of art
and of poetry. Brian, Iuchar (or, in its longer
form, Iucharba) and Uar are three aspects of the
same deity, — a feature that is common in many
countries where a deity is typified as a triad arising
from psychic conditions of thought. Together,
according to the Dialogue of the Two Sages, they
beget an only son, whose name Ecne means know-
ledge, letters, poetry. Dana, elsewhere called Brigit,
is the mother of these three gods or aspects of god-
life, and she was wife of Bress, king of the For-
norians, but by birth she belonged to the divine
race, her father being the Dagda. The Book of the
Invasions speaks of Donand as their mother :
" Donand, daughter of the same Delbaeth, that is
to say, the mother of the three last, to wit : Brian,
Iucharba and Iuchair." These were the three gods
of danu, of fate, or, if we render it otherwise, of
literature and art. Just as the cult of the goddess
Brigit, a name in root cognate with the Continental
name Burgundy, was in large measure transferred
to the Christian St. Brigit, on whose altar at Kildare
there burned perpetual fire, so the cult of Brian, the
god, was transferred to St. Michael ; just as Brigit
was both goddess and female file, 'poet or seer,' so
Brian and his brothers Iuchar and Uar are gods of
knowledge, art and poetry. Brian, accordingly, is a
seer. Brian is a son of Tuireann by Brigit ; both

1 v. D'Arbois de Jubainville's Irish Mythological Cycle, Best's trans.
p. 82.

yo THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

mother and son are eminent in knowledge : Brian
and his brothers have one son in common, viz.
Ecna, i.e. knowledge. The same mythic idea
is attempted to be expressed by three synonyms.
The older form seems to have been Brion, as
in the Wooing of Enter (Tochmarc Emire), a
form made into Brian in the Fate of the Children
of Tuirenn.1 The root idea may be seen in brl,
dignity, esteem, worth, ideas expressing a sense
of what is exalted, hence 'born from on high.'
At times he figures as Fortune, if not as Provi-
dence. Ossian in a lullaby to his mother is made
to say :

If thou art my mother, and thou a deer
Arise ere sun arise on thee ;

May Fortune (Providence) preserve thee from hoarseness-of-

breathing 2
Ere thy voice thy sweetheart hear.3

Mr. Campbell's variant is rendered by him thus :

"If Brian would take from me his murmuring,
before my sweetheart will hear my voice." But the
force of the first clause is : " O that Brian would
check the srannan (hoarse breathing) of me," i.e.
"may B. restrain from me the murmuring," being a
wish that Brian, the fairy god, would keep her from
making any noise by which her presence would
become known to Fionn. Ossian's advice to his

1 v. Kuno Meyer in Eriu, iv. 69.

2 Srannan, hoarseness, murmuring in sleep, snorting of cattle,
rattling in the throat ; srannan a bkdis = death rattle.

3 Original in Campbell's Leabhar Na Fe'inne, p. 200 ; a variant
where Brian is used instead of an Sealbh in Waifs and Strays of
Celtic Tradition, iv. 79.

BRIAN: HIS WISDOM 71

mother, in her animal-form of deer, that she should
get up before sunrise, implies that otherwise she
was liable to be shot by hunters ; to be up ere
sunrise was a sort of taboo comparable to some of
the restrictions of the Early Irish kings in the Book
of Rights.

Srannan a bhais, * the rattle of death/ is not so
strong a phrase as an cloze heir, the expression for
the death-rattle. Since Brian figures as Fortune,
we need not be surprised at meeting him as the
author of good counsel. Gillies's Collection of
Gadhelic Poetry (Perth, 1786) gives The Wise
Mans Advice to his Son, maxims largely proverbial
in the Highlands and partly current in Ireland, as
we see from the lines given at the end of Nicolson's
edition of the Proverbs, as well as from Bourke's
Irish Grammar. The lines have wisdom, good
humour and pithiness in the original, and I
may give a literal rendering of some, which
are in keeping with his character as a god of
wisdom :

Counsel Brian did give to me

Self-minded not to be ;

Nor go into fray nor fight

Unless, I thought, I would come back in life.

Another counsel he gave

Which, methinks, was none behind :

Though mine were the world's wealth

Not to set it against mine honour.

Of frequenting the Temple be mindful,
Fix not thy purpose on evil :
Let not this world's pelf
Cause thee to perjure thy soul.

72 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

If of a weakling thou hast a foolish report
Put not thine 1 thereto ;
Be not surety in a lie —
Let that tale pass bye.

Affable and kind be to thy friend,
With a stranger shun a quarrel ;
Say not thou wilt refuse the right
Nor seek nor refuse honour.

In thy palms squeeze not the thorn,
To thy foe thy distress make not known.
A beast of venom never willingly waken,
— A knife's edge in thy flesh.

Be not over fiery nor fierce,

Without a staff frequent not the stream ;

Let aught not escape thy lips

That will earn thee reproach.

The fierceness of fellow despise not ;
Of boiling fluid sip not a drop,
A clean sharp-edged razor-blade
When thou see'st, tread softly by.

Haughty-minded be not ; nor self disparage,

Spend not on trifles thy goods.

For folly's sake stir not strife

Nor refuse to fight when it needs be.

Of a trifling flaw be not over-watchful ;
Oppress not the poor ;
Nor praise nor dispraise the worthless
Until the faultless sage is found.

Dear one, for thy youth sufficeth,
Threap not in a matter disputed ;
Thy character to coarse jest expose not
Nor groundless prefer thy complaint.

The latter-day reports indicate clearly that Brian's
birth is one of parthenogenesis : possibly an earlier

1 Lit. thine half-hand.

THE DUSII OF GAUL: THE BRETON COURILS 73

age may not have distinguished this from the action
of the Dusii, the incubi which were thought of
as consorting with mortals.1 A parallel belief is
met with among the Bretons. My reference is in
Keightley (p. 441), who quotes W. Grimm : " In the
ruins of Tresmalonen dwell the Courils. They are of
a malignant disposition, but great lovers of dancing.
At night they sport among the druidical monuments.
The unfortunate shepherd that approaches them
must dance their rounds with them till cock-crow ;
and the instances are not few of persons thus
ensnared who have been found next morning dead
with exhaustion and fatigue. Woe also to the ill-
fated maiden who draws near the Couril dance !
nine months after the family counts one more. Yet
so great is the power and cunning of the Dwarfs
that the young stranger bears no resemblance to
them, but they impart to it the features of some lad
of the village."

But the Kilmaillie story is the more primitive one,
as it points to belief in the Virgin Birth. We recall
Hera who conceived Hephaistos simply by inhaling
the wind ; the maiden Wenonah of Longfellow's
poem who was quickened by the west wind and
bore Michabo {i.e. Hiawatha) ; the virgin Ilmatar
fructified by the east wind gave birth to the Finnish

1 Quosdam daemones quos Dusios Galli nuncupant, hanc assidue
immunditiam et tentare et efficere plures talesque asseverant —
Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xxiii. ; cf. Breton Duz ; E. Deucel The
Manx hairy satyr, Phynnodderree, — 'its hair or fur is its covering,'
says Craigeen (Dicty. 130), — is parallel : story pictures him as an Elfin
Knight who fell in love with a Manx maiden (Moore, p. 53). He is
the ' Dun Haired One,' and parallel to the Mag Molach (Hairy Paw
or Hand) of the Highlands, where it is a synonym for the Devil.

74 THE FINDING OF THE SOUL

Vainamoinen. Mohammedan tradition spoke of a
preadamite race of women who conceived daughters
by the wind ; the Arunta tribes of Australia hold
that a storm from the west brings child-germs.
These are only partial parallels, for in the Highland
story it is the wind, but the wind reinforced by the
bones of the dead. In short, there is ancestral virtue
in Brian's birth quite as much as was associated with
the birth of Servius Tullius at Rome, where the
father was deemed to have been the household Lar.
From Irish literature instances of supernatural birth
have been given in Meyer and Nutt's Voyage of
Bran the Son of Febail, and I must not further
enter on the theme here. Even a star is sometimes
conceived as fructifying : St. Aidan or Maedoc was
born of a star which fell into his mother's mouth as
she slept.1 Commonly at this stage of thought
fructification is regarded as due to the swallowing
of a worm : the births of Conchobar and of Cuchu-
lainn were accounted for by their mothers having
swallowed worms in the draught. Most closely
associated is the idea of the Birth-Token. In the
Breton story of the King of the Fishes we meet
with a poor and childless fisherman who spares the
life of a fish with scales of gold, which his wife
desires to eat. When re-caught, the fish asks that
its head be given her, and the scales buried in the
garden : the fish promises that to the wife would be
born three children with beautiful stars on their
foreheads, while from the scales would grow three
rose-trees, one of which was to belong to each of
the boys and be his life-token, and when the boy

1 Rev. Celt. v. 275.

BIRTH TOKENS 75

was in danger of death his tree should wither.
Variants assign parts of the fish to the fisherman's
mare and bitch, which bring forth young to the
number of the children.1 In the Highlands we
meet with the same story : here the fish tells the
fisher : " Thou shalt let no man split me, but do it
thyself. Thou shalt put into the pot but a morsel
of my liver and a bit of my heart to boil for thyself,
and for thy wife, and for thy mare, and for thy dog
to eat. Three bones thou wilt find at the side of my
head. Go out and bury them in the garden. Thy
wife will bear three sons. Thy mare will cast three
foals. Thy dog will litter three whelps. When
they are born dig up my bones and keep them.
Three trees will sprout where the bones are buried,
and they will be in leaf and budding, in sap and
growing, summer and winter, spring and autumn,
every day for ever, so long as the clan shall live.
They will droop or wither or die as they do."2

With these life-tokens thought has already made
the transition to the idea of the external soul.

1 Hartland, Primitive Paternity, i. 8, quoting Sdbillot's Contes Pop.
i. 124 (Story No. 18).

2 See The Celtic Dragon Myth, p. 37, where Campbell of I slay's re-
telling is given (Edinburgh, J. Grant).

II.

THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE.

It is a primitive idea that the soul can leave the
body. As separable soul1 it may take manifold
forms. A Breton tale tells of a giant's life as being
in an egg, in a dove, in a hare, in a wolf, which
lives in a coffer at the bottom of the sea. On
Gadhelic ground we meet with it in the young king
of Easaidh Ruadh, where the giant's soul is spoken
of as, first, in the Bonnach stone, then in the
threshold. " There is a flagstone under the thres-
hold. There is a wether under the flag. There is
a duck in the wether's belly, and an egg in the
belly of the duck, and it is in the egg that my soul
is." The king in his pursuit of his lady-love, taken
captive by the giant, had the assistance of a dog,
a falcon, and an otter. The dog pulled out the
wether ; the falcon caught the duck as it flew away ;
and the otter recovered the egg from the ocean
into which it had rolled. Thereafter he had but to
crush the egg and end the giant's life. Parallel
to this is the case of the sea-beast who captures the
king's daughter in Campbell's tale of ' The Sea-

1], A. MacCulloch, The Childhood of Fiction, 134-5.

THE EXTERNAL SOUL 77

Maiden ' : the soul of the beast is in an egg, in a
trout, in a hoodie, in a hind, which lives in an island
in a loch.

Next, the external-soul may be regarded as
present in an object intimately associated with a
man, as, for instance, the ancestoral sword.

The Highland oath upon the dirk is referred to
in the legends of Strathisla,1 the Strathylefe 2 of the
charter of King William of Scotland. The 4 Sick-
Bed of Cuchulainn,' an ancient Gadhelic tale, says
expressly that, of old, demons were wont to speak to
men from out of their weapons : the consequence
was that, if men swore false oaths, their swords
became turned, or turned themselves against them.3
The Gadhelic asseveration4 — by thy father's hand
and by thy grandfather's hand and by thine own
two hands supporting them — has reference ultimately
to the sword. The custom is parallel to that in
Aeschylus, who makes a hero swear by his sword.5
One recalls the familiar spirit which Paracelsus kept
imprisoned in the pummel of his sword as in the
portrait of Lumley Castle, and of which Butler in
Hudibras speaks :

Bombastus kept a devil's bird
Shut in the plummel of his sword,
That taught him all the cunning pranks
Of past and future mountebanks.

1 Legends of Strathisla, Inverness-shire, and Strathbogie, Elgin,
1862, p. 10.

2 lb. p. 105.

3§ 2 of 'Serglige Chonchulaind' in Windisch's Irische Texte ; cf.

" I swear by my shield and by my spear " {Eriu, iv. 99).

4 "Air laimh t' athar 's do sheanar is air do dha laimh fheMn ga
saoradh sin " — v. Barra version of ' Deiidire and the Sons of Usnech.'

6Usener's Gbtternamen, 1896, p. 280.

78 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

In the modern Scottish oath with uplifted hand
both judge and witness appeal to the Deity, as
did the Greeks when they lifted up their hand
at sacrifice, as did Aaron when he lifted up his hand
towards the people. But the Gadhelic tradition leads
back to an earlier world, and recurs likewise in
the word for oath,1 which was originally taken in
presence of the relics. Keating (vol. iii. 53) tells of
one whose head fell off at the fair of Taillte for
having sworn falsely by the hand of Ciaran. And
Spenser for his time says: " The Irish use now
to sweare by their lord's hand, and to forsweare
it they hold it more criminal than to sweare by
God."2

The external-soul may meet us as a little spectre
(fuatkarlan) or moth. This I have heard spoken
of as a soul-form. And for the more general belief
let me adduce what Pennant states :

" The belief in spectres still exists ; of which I
had a remarkable proof while I was in the county
of Breadalbane. A poor visionary, who had been
working in his cabbage garden, imagined that he
was raised suddenly into the air, and conveyed over
a wall into an adjacent corn-field : that he found
himself surrounded by a crowd of men and women,
many of whom he knew to have been dead some
years, and who appeared to him skimming over
the tops of the unbended corn, and mingling together
like bees going to hive : that they spoke an un-
known language and with a hollow sound : that

1 Mionn ; E. Ir. mind, oath, diadem, the swearing relics of a saint,
cognate with O. Welsh ?ninn, sertum.

2 Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, 82, 99.

THE SOUL-FORM AS MOTH 79

— _ 1 —

they very roughly pushed him to and fro ; but on
his uttering the name of God, all vanished but a
female sprite, who, seizing him by the shoulder,
obliged him to premise an assignation, at that very
hour, that day sevennight : that he then found that
his hair was all tied in double knots, and that he had
almost lost the use of his speech : that he kept his
word with the spectre, whom he soon saw come
floating through the air towards him : that he spoke
to her, but she told him at that time she was in
too much haste to attend to him, but bid him go
away, and no harm should befall him ; and so the
affair rested when I left the country."1

An authentic instance given by a friend is that
of M. A., a solicitor in Edinburgh, about seventy
years ago ; he saw a moth flitting round the table
suddenly wing its flight to a neighbouring room.
Where is it gone ? he called, and added that it was a
soul-spirit haunting the place, and a sign of death.

This is but another case of the soul taking a
form somewhat analogous to that of the butterfly-
soul. In Wales aged people used to say that white
moths were the souls of the dead who in this form
were allowed to take farewell of the earth. When
any kind of moth fluttered around a candle, people
said somebody was dying, and the soul was passing
(Trevelyan, 307).

The soul is at times thought to assume the form of
a butterfly, dearbadan ZV, tarntachan D6 being the
Highland names ; they are in part god-names. The
I rish fdiliocdn, the Ma.nx/o//zca7t> 'butterfly,' do not
show the god-soul in the name, but there is an

1 Pennant's Tour, i. 96.

80 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Irish legend as to a priest who came to disbelieve
that men had souls. " Who ever saw a soul?" he
would say. " If you can show me one I will
believe." All the king's sons were on his side, but
at last a mysterious. child comes on the scene and
shows him that if we have life though we cannot
see it, we may also have a soul though it is invisible.
He had met at last one who believed, and having
told the child his story he bade him watch, " for a
living thing will soar up from my body as I die, and
you will then know that my soul has ascended into
the presence of God." This was to be a sign that
his previous teaching was a lie. His death is then
described, and when his agony seemed to cease, the
child, who was watching, "saw a beautiful living
creature, with four snow-white wings, mount from
the dead man's body into the air, and go fluttering
round his head. So he ran to bring the scholars ;
and when they all knew it was the soul of their
master, they watched with wonder and awe until
it passed from sight into the clouds. And this was
the first butterfly that was ever seen in Ireland ; and
now all men know that the butterflies are the souls
of the dead waiting for the moment when they may
enter Purgatory, and so pass through torture to
purification and peace." But the schools of Ireland
were quite deserted after that time, for people said,
what is the use of going so far to learn when the
wisest man in all Ireland did not know if he had
a soul till he was near losing it ; and was only
saved at last through the simple belief of a little
child ? *

1 Lady Wilde's Anc. Legends, i. 66-67.

THE SOUL-FORM AS BUTTERFLY 81

In Brittany souls are frequently thought of as in
butterfly form ; but there the soul, on leaving the
body, is often held to take the form of a fly, some-
times that of a raven.1 There is here, and in what is
said of the moth, much that reminds of what Ralston
[Songs of the Russian People, 1 18) tells of the Slavs :
4< The butterfly seems to have been universally
accepted by the Slavonians as an emblem of the
soul. In the Government of Yaroslav one of its
names is dushichka, a caressing diminutive of dusha,
the soul. In that of Kherson it is believed that if
the usual alms are not distributed at a funeral, the
dead man's soul will reveal itself to his relatives in
the form of a moth flying about the flame of a
candle. The day after receiving such a warning
visit, they call together the poor and distribute food
among them. In Bohemia tradition says that if
the first butterfly a man sees in the spring is a
white one, he is destined to die within the year.
The Servians believe that the soul of a witch often
leaves her body while she is asleep and flies abroad
in the shape of a butterfly. If during its absence
her body be turned round, so that her feet are
placed where her head was before, the soul-butterfly
will not be able to find her mouth, and so she will
be shut out from her body. Thereupon the witch
will die."

With this one might compare the belief in the
Cots wolds in the Death's Head Moth as an

1 Sebillot, p. 342.

With the priest's thought compare the Indeterminates or questions
barred by Buddha : whether the Soul is the same as the body or
different from it : v. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, vol. i.
186 fol.

82 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

harbinger of death, while in the Midlands the bat
is regarded with awe, — both possibly old British.

The idea of the soul as in bee-form is familiar ;
for this reason the habit prevailed in some places
of veiling the hive in crape, as if to notify them of a
death in the household. I remember the case of
I. B., who, when his brother died, put the bees into
mourning.1 The late Rev. Dr. Forsyth, minister of
Abernethy, recorded the following tradition in his
earlier days when minister at Dornoch, — a legend
which illustrates also the ideas of the soul-bridge
and of the tree as taken to witness : " Once upon a
time there were two men travelling together on foot
along Speyside. The elder one of the two grew
weary, and they sat down to rest under a tree,
having drunk of a little stream that ran below them.
The wearied man soon fell asleep, and his com-
panion sat watching the larks singing above the
furze-bushes and the dimpling and purling of the
burn. He heard his fellow-traveller groaning and
muttering in a restless sleep, and he soon after saw
creep out of his mouth an insect like a bee, only
wanting its wings. This bee crawled along the
man's clothes and down on the sod till it came to
the brook, which it could neither fly over nor swim.
It aye turned back and back, and aye tried it again,
till the waking man, letting it creep on his sword,
helped it across. It then went on two hundred
yards or more and disappeared in a small cairn.
Presently the sleeper came to himself and told his

1 Chuir Iain Ban aodach dubh air na seilleanan nuair chaochail a
bhrathair=John Bayne placed black clothing on the bees when his
brother died. Cf. telling the bees of the death of the owner (a custom
widely spread in England).

THE BEE-SOUL 83

friend that he had a strange dream : a * wee wee
crayterie no bigger nor a bee ' had told him of a
hidden treasure, and had promised to show it to
him. It had seemed to him as if the creature came
out of his mouth, had crossed the burn by his
comrade's help, and had gone out of sight in a cairn.
The watcher (who had had time to follow the bee
to the cairn just hid by a rising ground, and not
more than two hundred yards off) laughed at the
story, but the elder man said that it must be true,
and declared his mind to seek the cairn and its
contents. High words followed, and the younger,
drawing his sword, slew the man who had dreamt
the dream of gold. The victim with his last breath
upbraided the other with treachery, and took the
tree, under which he had slept and now lay, to
witness that he had been foully murdered. The
murderer dug out the cairn and found the treasure,
gold and silver and silver arm-pieces, and became a
gay rich man, but 'aye where he went men saw a
tree abuve him and behind him, aye walking where
he walked, and staying where he stayed. An' for
all his gear he neuer got a friend to bide wi' him, nor
a lass to mary him. At last he was ouer weary of it
all, and went to the priest and telled him the way of
it, and made a restitution to the dead man's folk,
and that was good to him whatever ; but he didna
live lang syne.' " *

Hugh Miller, in My Schools and Schoolmasters
(ch. vi.), records a story told him by his cousin at
Gruids, Sutherland. He communicated to me, says
Miller, a tradition illustrative of the Celtic theory of

1 Rev. W. Forsyth, Dornoch, Folk- Lore Journal, vi. 171.

84 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

dreaming, of which I have since often thought. "Two
young men had been spending the early portion
of a warm summer day in exactly such a scene as
that in which he communicated the anecdote. There
was an ancient ruin beside them, separated, however,
from the mossy bank on which they sat, by a slender
runnel, across which there lay, immediately over a
miniature cascade, a few withered grass stalks. Over-
come by the heat of the day, one of the young men
fell asleep ; his companion watched drowsily beside
him ; when all at once the watcher was aroused to
attention by seeing a little indistinct form, scarce
larger than a humble-bee, issue from the mouth of
the sleeping man, and, leaping upon the moss, move
downwards to the runnel, which it crossed along the
withered grass stalks, and then disappeared amid
the interstices of the ruin. Alarmed by what he saw,
the watcher hastily shook his companion by the
shoulder, and awoke him ; though, with all his haste,
the little cloud-like creature, still more rapid in its
movements, issued from the interstice into which it
had gone, and, flying across the runnel, instead of
creeping along the grass stalks and over the sward,
as before, it re-entered the mouth of the sleeper, just
as he was in the act of awakening. ' What is the
matter with you ? ' said the watcher, greatly alarmed,
— * What ails you ? ' ' Nothing ails me,' replied the
other ; ' but you have robbed me of a most delightful
dream. I dreamed I was walking through a fine rich
country, and came at length to the shores of a noble
river; and, just where the clear water went thundering
down a precipice, there was a bridge all of silver, which
I crossed ; and then, entering a noble palace, on the

BEE-SOUL IN SUTHERLAND 85

opposite side, I saw great heaps of gold and jewels,
and I was just going to load myself with treasure,
when you rudely awoke me, and I lost all.' I know
not what the asserters of the clairvoyant faculty may
think of the story ; but I rather believe I have
occasionally seen them make use of anecdotes that
did not rest on evidence a great deal more solid than
the Highland legend, and that illustrated not much
more clearly the philosophy of the phenomena with
which they profess to deal."

This is exactly the story in King Gunthrams
Dream ; it portrays an aspect of the external soul :

These Highland stories have a strange similarity
to that in the Latin of Paul the Deacon (720-790 a.d.).
" It befell one day that Gunthram, King of the Franks,
went hunting in a forest, and, as often happens, his
companions were scattered, and he himself left alone
with one loyal attendant. He was overcome with
sleep, and slept with his head resting on his re-
tainer's knees. As the king slept, the other in
whose lap he lay, saw a small creature like a lizard
come out of his mouth and look for some way to
cross a slender stream of water that was running
near. He drew his sword from the sheath and laid
it across the water, and the little reptile went over it
to the other side, and disappeared in a hole in the
hill. It returned not long after, and came back over
the sword and into the king's mouth. When Gun-
thram awoke he described a wonderful vision. It
seemed in his dream that he had crossed a river on
an iron bridge and entered a mountain where he
found a great treasure of gold. Then the squire
told him what he had seen while the king was asleep.

86 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Search was made in the place, and great heaps of
ancient gold discovered there. Of this the king had
a paten made of great size and weight adorned with
precious stones which he intended to have sent to
the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but he was pre-
vented, and placed it on the shrine of St. Marcellus
at Chalons, the capital of his kingdom, where it is
to this day."

Ere passing from this, I may add another curious
story from the same source as illustrating a parallel
belief as well as transformation. Cunincpert, King
of the Lombards, was standing at the window of
the palace in Pavia, consulting with his marshal
(marhpaiz, i.e. the groom who bits and bridles the
horse) how to remove his enemies Aldo and Grauso.
A large fly settled on the window sill before him ;
the king made a blow at it with his dagger, but only
cut off a leg. Meantime, Aldo and Grauso were
coming to the palace, ignorant of the king's designs
against them. When they were at the church of
St. Romanus near the palace, there met them a one-
legged man, who said to them that if they went to
Cunincpert he would kill them. They were filled
with terror at this, and took refuge behind the altar
in the church : this was told to the king. Then C.
blamed his marshal for publishing his intention.
But the marshal answered : " My lord king, thou
knowest that since this was spoken of in counsel I
have not departed from thy presence ; and how
could I tell it to any one ? " Then the king sent to
Aldo and Grauso asking why they had fled to
sanctuary. They answered : " Because it was de-
clared to us that our Lord the king would have put

A BRETON VARIANT $7

us to death." Again the king sent to ask them who
had given them these tidings, affirming that unless
they told they should never have grace. Then they
sent to the king to say that a lame man had met
them, wanting a foot, and with a wooden leg, who
had warned them of destruction. Then the kine
saw that the fly whose foot he had cut off was an
evil spirit, and had discovered his secret. He
brought away Aldo and Grauso from their refuge,
and forgave them, and took them into his favour.

The nearest parallel is in a Breton story where
the soul is seen as an insect. Pezr Nicol was a
man, and he died. His friend, Yvon Peuker, saw
a fly come out of the dying man's mouth, a shadowy
fly, — with gauzy wings, something like the ephemeral
insects that hover over streams at eventide. It
dipped its feet in a basin of milk, flew round the
room and vanished. When it re-appeared it settled
on the corpse, and there remained, allowing itself
to be shut in the coffin with the dead man. Peuker
saw it again when they reached the churchyard, and
understood then that it must be the soul of Pezr
Nicol. The insect soon flew to a marsh not far
from the farm on which Pezr Nicol dwelt during
his life. Then it perched upon a thorn-bush.

"Poor little fly! what do you do here?" asked
the good Peuker.

" You can see me, then ? "

" I see you certainly since I am speaking to you.
Tell me, are you not the soul of the departed Pezr
Nicol, who was my best friend on earth ? "

" Yes. This is the place where God wills me to
be for my expiation, and I have to remain here five

88 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

hundred years. God must regard you with great
favour, having permitted you to recognise my soul
under this form."

The soul then explains the dipping of the feet in
milk as an act of cleansing ere appearing before the
Judge, and explains his flitting about as a bidding
farewell to the farm-implements and animals, and
his being shut in the coffin as an obligation to remain
with the body until God gave sentence.1

The belief in the bird-soul was well known in the
Highlands. To illustrate : A farmer was coming
home from Inverness to Buntait when at a weird
part of the way his mare got uncontrollable and ran
up with him to where was a waterfall (eas). Where-
upon he swooned and fell off. On recovering he
found his way home and was amazed at finding
his mare tied in the stable, not knowing how it
happened, for nobody confessed to having tied her.
Soon after he hurt himself in moving a heavy box
of oats at the farm of Shewglie ; a plough or two
broke thereafter at the spring-work, always a bad
omen. Getting more unwell, he said to his wife the
night before his death : " What a beautiful bird I
heard singing by my bedside to-night." " I well
believe it," she replied. To which he answered:
11 It was my ghost ; I cannot live long." He it was
who composed the song containing the verse :

Chan e do ghug tig tha air m'aire
ach m'uireasbhuidh m6r tha mi 'gearain
'S mu'n tig thu-sa rithist, a bhroineag
bidh mise an ciste-bhbrd nan tarrung.

1 Condensed from Le Braz's La Legende de la Mort en Basse
Bretagne.

THE BIRD-SOUL: CUCKOO 89

ue. 'Tis not thy "guck-ook" (or sad cry) that I
heed ; 'tis my deep need that is my plaint ; ere thou
comest again, O sad one ! I shall be a-nailed in the
coffin.'

In St. Kilda the cuckoo is a bird of ill omen
(cf. Glasgow Herald, June 10, 19 10). A common
bye-name for it over the Highlands is bradag,
* rascal,' from its neglect of its young : to express
contempt or ill-luck there is the phrase : ' chac a
chuthag air ' = ' the cuckoo " dropped " on him.' It is
a bird of augury : ' chuala mi chuthag gun bhiadh
am bhroinn . . . s dh'aithnich mi fein nach rachadh
a bhliadhna learn ' = ' I heard the cuckoo while fast-
ing (ere I took breakfast i.e.) . . . and I knew that
the year would not go well with me.' It is unlucky
in the Highlands to hear the first cuckoo of the
season ere one has broken one's fast. In Mid-
Wales there seems to be a trace of a belief that the
cuckoo was once a beautiful lady who wept over her
brother's death until she was changed into a bird
(Trevelyan, 109). With this last falls to be com-
pared the Slavic belief that the cuckoo is a trans-
formed girl who mourned too much for her lost
lover.

It is curious that in Anglo-Saxon lyrics of the
eighth century the cuckoo is a bird of sorrow,
filling the heart with care — which may be due to
Celtic influence, as it is an idea alien to Germanic
literature, though I cannot prove this by citing old
references as yet. The Breton fishers near St.
Malo not so long ago spoke of it as ' parent/ and
thought of it as a good augury for fishing : at St.
Jacut the first boat that hears the cuckoo casts out

90 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

a ray-fish as offering : the sailors of St. Cast, if they
hear it sing when embarking, light a pipe in its
honour. In Friesland, Lithuania, and south-east of
the Urals there are dances in honour of the cuckoo,
which have been regarded as remnants of a totem-
dance in Europe.1 The Highland song by Dr.
Maclachlan of Rahoy speaks of the cuckoo as dis-
pelling sorrow — 's tu thogadh brbn om chridhe, i.e.
' 'tis thou wouldst raise grief from mine heart ' — but
this is quite modern, and the whole song reproduces
loosely the feeling of a poem in English which
speaks of the bird thus :

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song
Nor winter in thy year !

In some of the Celtic areas of old the feeling
would have been the reverse.

I take the following from Miss Dempster of
Skibo's collection in a document among the
Campbell of I slay Manuscripts in the Advocates'
Library : " Some days before the death of Dr.
Bethune, sometime minister of the parish of
Dornoch (1816), a large cormorant was observed
sitting on the steeple of the parish church
— the whole town took this as a sign that the
incumbent was not long for this world. One of the
same birds was seen flying and lighting on parts of
the building in 185 the vulgar predicted from this
a similar result, and the event justified the saying,
for the then clergyman sickened and died after a
short illness.

A common proverb associates the magpie with
death, but if two come to a house it portends a

1 Se*billot, 339-

THE BIRD-SOUL: MAGPIE, RAVEN, EAGLE 91

wedding.1 The raven is equally a bird of omen,
raven-knowledge 2 or wisdom being proverbial ; I
find it referred to in a poem in the * Massacre of
the Rosses,' and quite recently in a poem in
memory of Louisa MacDougall of MacDougall
by the clan bard to whom the raven is symbolic
of the prowess and valour of the descendants of
Conn and Somerled :

Cumha Cholla is Chuinn

'S cumha Shomhairle mhoir chruinn

Bu trie fitheach air luing 's air bord.

The Isle of Man has similar beliefs. As to the
magpie they say :

One for sorrow, two for death,

Three for a wedding and four for a birth.

Ravens, too, are uncanny, because they were
originally Odin's messengers, suggests Mr. Moore,
but perhaps the parallel Norse belief is only a
coincidence.

In Wales the eagle was of old a bird of divina-
tion. " The descendants of a person who had eaten
eagles' flesh to the ninth generation possessed the
gift of second sight." The eagles of Snowdon were
regarded as oracles ; chained eagles were supposed
to guard the resting-place of King Arthur. When
high winds prevailed the saying was, " the eagles
are breeding whirlwinds on Snowdon " (Trevelyan,
81-82). One recalls the Roman service of the
consecratio (Herodian, iv. 2), where the eagle that

1 Pigheid bas 's a dha banais. Seemingly old British ; cf. the belief
in the Cotswolds that to have a magpie cross one's path in the morning
means that a death will follow.

2 Fios fithich.

92 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

rose from the pyre symbolised the soul of the
Emperor, the eagle-god. The eagle of the legions
was a fetich to the common soldier, who anointed it
and prepared a sacellum for it in the camp (Pliny,
Hist. Nat. xiii. 23). The fire-stealer Prometheus is
an eagle-god ; from a divine eagle some royal
families of old fabled their descent (v. Reinach,
Cultes, Mythes et Religions, iii. p. 78). The witches
(doiteagan) of Mull in legend are said to assume
raven form, and in this guise raise a tempest and
croak maledictions on the Lochlin princess asso-
ciated in Mull story with the disaster1 to a vessel
from Spain.

The soul in swan form is best evidenced by the
Fate of the Children of Lir, a tragic story of great
pathos wherein human beings are transformed into
swans at the bidding of a cruel stepmother. It is
easily accessible in Joyce's Old Gaelic Romances.
The metamorphoses of the three daughters of Lir,
the sea-god, is but a return to their primitive estate.
In its basic idea one may compare Zeus and his
wooing of Leda, a legend which goes back to an
early age when some Greek tribe had for goddess
a swan which they thought of as of near kin to
mortals. With the rise of thought such gods in
animal form give place to gods in human form.

In St. Kilda (Gaelic, ' Hirt, Hiort') this phase of
belief appears as 'the ghost-bird.' The last British
specimen of the Great Auk was captured there on
Stac-an-Armuinn between 1830 and 1835. " It was
described as being about the size of a year-old lamb,

lv. 'The Tobermory Treasure Ship in Fact and Legend,' by Rev. D.
MacGillivray, in Northern Chronicle, January or February 16, 1910.

ST. KILDA GHOST-BIRD: GREAT AUK 93

with a head like a razor-bill, and short wings, so
that it could not fly. The men caught the bird, tied
a rope to its leg, and kept it for two or three days.
The extraordinary appearance of the bird impressed
the men so much that they thought it was a ghost,
and looked upon it as the cause of the bad weather
they were experiencing. They, therefore, killed the
poor bird, and threw it at the back of the house,
covering it with stones. It has ever since gone by
the name of the ' ghost-bird/ " x

The sapient islanders of the Hebrides would thus
seem to have been at the same level of belief with
those Greeks who believed that the soul left the
body in the form of a bird.2

Here, I think, one should place Cuchulainn's
bird-of-valour, which symbolises not merely the
hero's fury, but the transmission of the ancestral
god-soul, symbolised among other peoples by the
eagle-tipped sceptre, handed down from king to
king, as well as by the eagle portrayed on standards,
which goes back on the belief that the soul of a
monarch once upon a time appeared as an eagle,
and in this form watched over the fortunes of
empire. The standard transmits the virtue of the
ancestral hero ; the soul of the slain king is magically

1St. Kilda and its Birds, by J. Wiglesworth, M.D., F.R.C.P.,
Liverpool, 1903, p. yj\ cf. A. B. Cook, in Folk-Lore for 1904,
p. 387 n.

2 The literary evidence for which is seen in the myths of Caeneus
(Ovid's Meta?n. 12, 514 ff.) and Ctesylla {Ant. Lib. i.); the monu-
mental evidence in works like G. Weicker's Der Seelenvogel and
J. E. Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study oj Greek Religion (p. 197 rT.).
In Egypt the king's soul is referred to as a hawk under the twelfth
and nineteenth dynasties (Flinders Petrie, Religion and Conscience in
Ancient Egypt, p. 30).

94 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

transmitted to his successor. It springs from Manism,
or the worship of manes or spirits, comprehensive of
all forms of totemism to which there are early
references in Gadhelic saga. Thus the mother of
Conaire Mor learns that her son must not kill birds.
Once he saw great white-speckled birds of unusual
size and beauty coming towards him. He pursues
them until his horses were tired. The birds would
go a spear-cast before him, and would not go any
further. He pursued them out to sea and overcame
them. The birds quit their bird-skins and turn
upon him with spears and swords. One of them
protects him and says : " I am Nemglan, king of thy
father's birds, and thou hast been forbidden to
cast at birds, for here there is no one that should not
be dear to thee because of his father and mother."1
The violation of this Tabu led to Conaire's death.
In the Cuchulainn saga there is the case of
Dechtere and her attendant troop of bird-maidens.
In the traditions of the Cymry birds appear as
instruments of divination to diagnose royal blood.
The bird-soul is here the ancestral-soul. According
to Giraldus Cambrensis it happened that in the
time of Henry I. Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Tudor, who,
although he only held of the king one commote,
namely, a fourth part of the cantref of Caio, yet
was reputed as lord in Deheubarth, was returning
from court by way of Llangorse Lake, in Brecknock-
shire, with Milo, Earl of Hereford, and Lord of
Brecknock, and Payn Fitz John, who then held
Ewyas, two of the king's secretaries and privy
councillors. It was winter, and the lake was covered

1 Orgain Brudne Da Dergae, ed. Stokes, § 7, 13.

THE BIRD-SOUL IN WALES 95

with water-fowl of various kinds. Seeing them,
Milo, partly in joke, said to Gruffydd : " It is an
old saying in Wales that if the natural prince of
Wales, coming to this lake, command the birds upon
it to sing, they will all immediately sing." Gruffydd
replied : " Do you, therefore, who now bear sway in
this country, command them first." Both Milo and
Payn having made the attempt in vain, Gruffydd
dismounted from his horse, fell on his knees with
his face to the east, and after devout prayers to God,
stood up, and making the sign of the Cross on
his forehead and face, cried aloud: " Almighty and
all-knowing God, Lord Jesus Christ, show forth
here to-day thy power! If thou hast made me
lineally to descend from the natural princes of Wales
I command these birds in thy name to declare it."
Forthwith all the birds, according to their kind, beat-
ing the air with outstretched wings, began altogether
to sing and proclaim it. No wonder that all who were
present were amazed and confounded, and that Milo
and Payn reported it to the king, who is said to have
taken it philosophically enough. " By the death of
Christ' (his customary oath), he replied, "it is not
so much to be wondered at. For although by our
great power we may impose injustice and violence
upon these people, yet they are nevertheless known
to have the hereditary right to the country." 1

In Scotland there was a saying that the robin
"had a drop of God's blood in its veins, and that
therefore to kill or hurt it was a sin, and that some
evil would befall any one who did so ; and, con-
versely, any kindness done to poor robin would be

1 Girald. Cambr., Itinerarium Cambriae, 1. i. c. 2.

96 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

repaid in some fashion. Boys did not dare to harry
a robins nest." The yellow-hammer and the swallow
were said, each, "to have a drop of the Devil's
blood in its veins ; so the yellow-hammer was ' re-
morselessly harried,' and the swallow 'was feared
and therefore let alone.'"1 Here is an illustration
of the blood of the gods communicated to earthly
organisms.

One may infer from many references that the
Druids practised augury from the cries of birds. In
an ancient poem ascribed to St. Columba, he says,
alluding to the omens of the Druids :

I reverence not the voices of birds,

Nor sneezing, nor any charm in the wide world.

My Druid is Christ the Son of God.

A Latin Life of St. Moling has it that the wren is
a bird of augury : magus avium, eo quod aliquibus
praebet augurium ; the Pseudo-Cormac Glossary
explains it as drui-en, a druid bird. In Gaelic
dreathan (donn) is used for ' wren ' ; Stokes 2 gives
dreoan, from *dreo = W. dryw, ' wren ; also druid,
soothsayer,' from proto-Celtic *drevo, cognate with
German treu, E. true. It seems to me that this
derivation has much to support it in the folk-lore
concerning it as a bird of soothsaying ; the druid of
birds.

O'Curry says the Druids divined from the chirp-
ing of tame wrens.

The wren has a drop of God's blood, in the folk-
belief of some Highland districts. He is king of
birds, a dignity attained to according to West

Napier's Folk-Lore of the West of Scotland, p. m.
2 Indogerm. Forschungen, 1910, 2nd pt. p. 143.

THE WREN AS 'DRUID' BIRD 97

Highland tradition by his having secreted himself
above the eagle that soared high above all other
birds, whereupon the wren flew a little upwards and
cried : " Birds, behold your king." He was accord-
ingly elected king in the assembly of birds. Yet
the Manx custom of ■ hunting the wren ' shows that
once a year it was ceremoniously slain, and its
feathers distributed so as to communicate divine
virtue. Without a dead wren to protect them the
Manx fishermen would not once upon a time go to
sea. It was a 'fairy' of uncommon beauty, says
Bullock in his History of the Isle of Man, that used
to unduly entice the men to sea, where they perished,
and on being hunted down by a knight-errant she
was only able to escape by assuming the form of a
wren. A spell brought it to pass that every New
Year the wicked ' fairy ' had to take wren-form,
and ultimately perish by a human hand. The
feathers of the killed wren were preserved with
religious care as an effectual preservation from
shipwreck for one year ; every person met with had
to purchase a feather and to wear it in their hats for
the day. Formerly the naked body w7as interred
with great solemnity in a secluded corner of the
churchyard, and the evening concluded with all
manner of sports.

Possibly it was but a coincidence that the stoning
of the wren took place on St. Stephen's Day, for
Waldron, speaking of an earlier time, says " On the
24th of December, towards evening, all the servants
in general have a holiday ; they go not to bed all
night, but ramble about till the bells ring in all the
churches, which is at 12 o'clock ; prayer being over,

93 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

they go to hunt the wren, and after having found
one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay her on
a bier with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to
the parish church, and burying her with a whimsical
kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the
Manx language, which they call her knell, after
which Xmas begins." 1 The divinity of the wren as
protecting spirit is here indicated ; the slaughter is a
rite of sacrifice to attain communion with the divine,
here held to be a malific power.

In West Sutherland I ascertained that some of
the fishermen formerly held it was unlucky to kill a
gull, for gulls were the souls of the deceased. Perhaps
the idea of the isle or paradise of birds, as in the
legend of St. Brendan, was founded on the belief of
the soul in bird-form. Nothing has taken firmer
hold of the Gadhelic mind than the Fate of the
Children of Lir, who were turned into swans at the
instance of their cruel stepmother, but they retained
their souls, as is witnessed by their having ascribed
to them the knowledge of their own Gadhelic music
and their Gadhelic speech. Further, in the Highlands
it used to be said that the earth placed over spots
where a murder had been committed was wont to be
disturbed by birds at night, which recalls to one the
old Arab belief that the blood of a murdered man
turned into an accusing bird till vengeance was
taken for the dead. An Irish tradition in Keatine2
tells of a queen and her handmaid who were turned
into two herons at the word of Columcille. Another

1 A. W. Moore, The Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man, pp. 133, 144, where
the various accounts are quoted, also the music of ' Hunt the Wren.'

2 Keating's History of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 91 (Irish Texts Society ed.).

THE BIRD-SOUL: ANIMAL SPEECH 99

tells of Aoife in the form of a crane that belonged to
the sea-god, Manannan.1

Birds are credited with a speech of their own.
Such was the lapwing's cry : Mhurchaidh bhig ! na
creach mo nid {sic), i.e. 'little Murdoch, harry not
my nest.' All such ascriptions of speech to birds
are attempts to give renderings in human language
of the cries of the various birds. Though many
and varied they need not here detain us.

For parallels where this belief has assumed a
developed form one may point to the Dove Cult of
primitive Greece, where sacred doves are associated
with a sepulchral cult. It was the favourite shape
in which the spirit of the departed was imagined to
haunt its last resting-place. An early Indian code
requires that upon the occasion of a sacrifice a frag-
ment of the offering to the departed spirits should
also be thrown to the birds, " because we are taught
that our fathers glide along, taking the form of
birds."2

Here comes the transition to the Language of
Animals.

(a) The last words said by the cow were : Na
buail do bhas orm — ' do not smite me with your
palm.' It was not right that the blessed creature,
the cow, should be struck by * the flesh of the
sinner.' If one had only a stick three inches
long he should use it in driving the cow instead of
striking her with his hand. Can this be a survival
of a religious precept ? Cf. the sacred cow of
the Hindoos.

1 Duajiaire Fhinn., pt. i. p. 119.

2 Bertholet, The Transmigration of Souls, 64.

ioo THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

(b) The last words spoken by the horse were :

Na greas le bruthach mi

Na buail an aghaidh leothaid mi

Nuair a gheibh thu air an reidhleach mi

na caomhain mi
Biadhaidh gu math mi nuair a theid mi dhachaidh.

i.e. ' Hurry me not down a brae, nor force (lit. strike)
me up an incline ; on the level do not spare me ;
feed me well on going home ! '

(c) When sheep had language, as all animals once
had, it is said that the last thing spoken by a sheep
was a request that its bones should never be burned.
Since that time it is not considered right to throw a
bone of a sheep into the fire, and any person doing
so is checked. One may infer that in pre-Christian
rites the sheep was burnt in sacrifice. Cf. the
sacrifices to Crom Cruach.

Cattle are so deeply loved that in the Highlands
certain names run in the breed from generation to
generation ; cattle-names may be very old, as also
cattle calls, e.g. pruch, a call to cows only, with
meaning ' come here ' ; to calves the call is, pruicidh ;
also pru-dhd) pru-dhe1, pru-dhd.

Numerous traces of animal worship existed among
the Gauls. The tribal names Taurisci, Brannovices,
Eburones point respectively to a veneration of the
Bull, the Raven, the Boar, among peoples who
probably once traced their descent from them.
Place-names like Tarvisium, ' Bulltown (?) ' ; Lugu-
dunum, ' Raven-Fort ' ; personal names like Deio-
tarus, ' the divine bull ' ; Artogenos, ' the descendant
of the bear/ point in the same direction. The boar
was also sacred, as may be inferred from emblems on

SACRED ANIMALS: ANIMAL'fASTING 101

coins. The mare-goddess Epona had its parallel in
the male horse-god Rudiobus, of which an image in
bronze, showing no rider, has been found near
Orleans, along with figures of boars and of a stag.1

So closely was the association between man and
cattle felt in former times that we come across cases
of l animal-fasting,' like as we meet with the equally-
archaic though different idea of ' fasting on a person '
in the Brehon Laws. The fasting of cattle as well
as of human beings is spoken of in Adamnan's Second
Vision, translated by Stokes from the Lebar Breac.
He notes: " That calves were sometimes made to fast
in Ireland after a chieftain's death appears from a
poem in the Cogadh Gaedel re Gallaibk (ed. Todd,
p. ioo), two lines of which mean : ' Though calves
are not suffered to go to the cows in lamentation for
noble Mahon.' The practice may possibly, Dr.
Todd suggests, have been suggested by Jonah iii. 7.
But it rather seems a result of the belief in the souls
of animals, and of the tendency to treat them as
human, which are found in every race at a certain
stage of its culture."2 In Ireland the local saints
were believed to guard the lives of certain kinds of
animals. St. Colman's teal could neither be killed
nor injured ; St. Brendan provided an asylum for
stags, wild boars and hares ; St. Beanus protected
his cranes and the grouse which bred upon the
Ulster mountains.3

The local saints often took the place of the old
gods. Caesar's statement4 shows us that to the
ancient Britons hare, goose and domestic fowl were

1 Reinach's Orpheus (French ed.), p. 168. 2 Rev. Celtique, 12, p. 441.
3 Elton's Origins of English History, 287. 4 De Bello Gallico, v. 12.

. . » » _ • t

€ » •

• * ♦ '

'\6z':,': : ''THE*' WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

taboo. Giraldus gives a story of the loathing shown
by the Irish chieftains on being offered a dish of
roasted crane.1 The hare often figures in folk-belief.
Thus Boudicca, the queen-heroine of the ancient
Britons, loosed a hare from her robe, observed its
movements as a kind of omen, and when it turned
propitiously the whole multitude rejoiced and
shouted.2 In Western Brittany not many years ago
the peasantry could hardly endure its name ; 3 such
is the case in parts of Russia. The oldest Welsh
laws allude to the magical character of the hare,
which was thought to change its sex every month
or year, and to be the companion of the witches
who were believed to assume its shape. In one
part of Wales the hares are called St. Monacella's
lambs, and it is said that up to very recent times no
one in the district would kill one. "When a hare
was pursued by dogs it was believed that if any one
cried ' God and St. Monacella be with thee ! ' it was
sure to escape."*

To be fed on the hares of Naas was one of the
prerogatives of the kings of Tara,5 which means
that to others it was forbidden. Shape-shifting or
transformation into hare-form may fitly lead to the
consideration of the theriomorphic soul or the soul
in animal form.

(a) Transformation into hare-form. — This deeply-
rooted belief has been current for ages, and is not
yet extinct. Wherever witchcraft obtains any hold

1 Conqu. Hibern. i. 31. 2 Dion. Cass. lxii. 3.

3 Cf. Figuier, Prim. Man (Tylor), 268.

4 Pennant's Tour Through Montgomeryshire and Sikes's British
Goblins, 162.

60'Curry's Man. and Cus. ii. 141.

THE SOUL IN HARE-FORM 103

this belief is met with. I have personally heard of
and known many women who were regarded as
having the power of shifting themselves into hare-
shape. It was most uncanny to see a hare pacing a
thatched cottage in the gloaming, still more to see
several of them capering at cross-roads. The belief
is exemplified in many folk-tales, as in ' The Leech-
ing of O'Cein's Leg,' where the gearraidh, 'hare,' is
spoken of, the nearest Scottish form to the Irish
geirrfhiadh, 'short-deer.' As a rule gearr is used
for 'hare,' but 7naigheach also occurs from magh%
4 plain,' i.e. 'campestris.' There are numerous stories
in the Highlands of hares having been shot at with
a gun having a 'silver six-pence,' the creature shot
being reputed to be some local witch afterwards
found suffering of secret wounds. The transforma-
tion of witches into hare-form is the chief Highland
characteristic, which tallies with the Isle of Man
account.1 It enters into Welsh folk-lore, but it is
rather the idea of augury that is emphasised.2 In
Brittany at Lannion 3 souls take the form of hares.
Everywhere in Celtdom it is a creature of omen for
expectant mothers who have their old rites to avert
hare-lip. Its lore dates from British times, and is
met with widely in England ; a writer in the Oxford
Times (2nd January, 1909) refers to the Phantom
Hare thus : " In the Cotswold country the rustics
declare that every seventh child of a seventh child
possesses ' second sight,' and that the ' wraith,' or, as
they call it, the ' bogy,' of a person about to die is
always visible to such persons. An old woman told

1 The Folk- Lore of the Isle of Man, by A. W. Moore, p. 147.

2 Trevelyan, p. 77. 3 Sebillot, 196.

io4 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

me here that he who should deceive a maid, or lead
her astray, would be ever afterwards haunted by her
' bogy ' in the shape of a hare. This, she declared,
was invisible to all except the haunted one, and in
the end the hare, by some means or other, caused
the deceiver to die."

A memorandum made by Bishop White- Kennett
about the hare, which we may regard as a token
from what Caesar says regarding the hare, the
cock and the goose, is here in point : " When one
keepes a hare alive and feedeth him till he have
occasion to eat him, if he telles before he kills him
that he will do so, the hare will thereupon be found
dead, having killed himself." Mr. Gomme points
out that this respect is carried further at Biddenham,
where, on the 22nd September, a little procession of
villagers carried a white rabbit (a substitute for hare)
decorated with scarlet ribbons through the village,
singing a hymn in honour of St. Agatha. All the
young unmarried women who chanced to meet the
procession extended the first two fingers of the left
hand pointing towards the rabbit, at the same time
repeating the following doggerel :

Gustin, Gustin, lacks a bier,
Maidens, maidens, bury him here.

This ancient custom had for its object the reveren-
tial burying of a rabbit or hare.

Gregorson Campbell in his Witchcraft and Second-
Sight in the Highlands and Isles of Scotland, gives
tales wherein witches are credited with the power
of appearing in the guise of sheep, hares, cats, rats,
gulls, cormorants, whales. By far the most common
belief is that of witches in hare-form ; of this class

THE SOUL IN HARE-FORM 105

of story the saying holds : though not to be believed,
it may be told (ged nach gabh e creidsinn, gabhaidh
e innseadh). In this category is to be placed the
tale of the Sutherland worthy as recently re-told
in the Northern Chronicle, from the old man's
experience by Mr. D. M. Rose. The narrative is
characteristic of its class. Mr. Rose says :

11 Donald told me the story himself, and swore
it was ' true as gospel.' Of course I was bound
to believe him, and did not hurt the poor man's
feelings by telling him that such yarns were common
in half a dozen northern counties. In the days of
his youth Donald had been sent to cut peats away
in hills at a spot far distant from any human habi-
tation. About mid-day Donald sat down on the
peat-bank to rest, but was startled at hearing weird
sounds in his neighbourhood. He sprang to his
feet and looked eagerly in every direction without
discovering anything to account for the strange
noise. He was about to resume his seat, when
presently there came into view, over a small hillock,
a monster hare with two black hounds in pursuit.
As the beast was making straight for the spot where
he stood, Donald grasped his 'spadarel,' and raising
it aloft he brought it down on poor puss's back,
severing her into two as she passed. Just fancy
the horror of Donald when he gazed at the severed
fragments. One part of puss was gradually trans-
forming itself into the face and features of a
neighbour's wife who had an uncanny reputation,
while the other portion remained ' a hare.' Donald
had such a * sair fleg' that he bolted. After running
a few paces he thought it prudent to recover his

106 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

1 spadarel,' and was exceedingly astonished to find
not the least trace of the dead bit of woman, hare
or hounds ! Donald was so thoroughly alarmed that
he rushed homewards. His wife, who was absent,
came hurrying in with the startling news that the
neighbour's wife had been killed about the middle
of the day, and that she had been at the house to
see the body laid out. Donald at once sprang to his
feet, although he felt as ' waik as a child,' a cold
shiver ran down his back although there were ' big
drops of swate ' falling from his brow. At last
Donald managed to ask his wife if the ' woman was
in bittocks,' i.e. in pieces. ' What do you mean,'
said his wife, ' the poor craitur went to the byre to
milk the coos, and as she passed one of the shelties
draive his two hind heels into the poor woman's
side, and she didna live an hoor after that' ' Thank
the Lord,' says Donald, with a fervent sigh of relief,
but he kept the story of his own ' experiences in
memory for many a year' — not even revealing his
tale to the wife of his bosom. Of course he had
seen the soul of the witch trying to escape from the
black hounds of Hades ! "

A totem animal is a characteristic omen. Bou-
dicca, the Queen of the Iceni, is said to have taken
a hare from out her bosom, and to have drawn an
augury therefrom as to the course of her attack upon
the Roman army. In Northamptonshire if a hare run
along a street it portends fire to some house near by.
In 1648 Sir Thomas Browne says it was deemed
unlucky when a hare crossed one's path : there were
few over three-score that were not perplexed by it.
In parts of Scotland the unluck due to meeting a

THE SOUL IN HARE-FORM 107

hare did not extend after the next meal was taken.
In north-east Scotland the name of the hare must
not be pronounced at sea. One cannot but agree
with Mr. Gomme's conclusion that a classification of
the beliefs and customs connected with the hare
takes us to every phase of totemistic belief, and that
it is impossible to reject such a mass of cumulative
evidence.1

Shape-shifting (do/ ann an riochd) does not as
such raise the question of re-incarnation of the soul.
Soul and body are not nicely differentiated at that
stage. The good folks I have known who were
held to assume the form of hares at will were
thought of as doing so as complete natures : on
regaining human-form, if wounded in their hare-
form, they had the self-same wounds on the corre-
sponding part of the body. Parallel is the Welsh
case of Llew Llawgyffes who, on being wounded,
assumed eagle-form, and was afterwards found in
bird-form with the flesh putrefying from his wound.
The eagle-form is not quite a case of the bird-soul :
it belongs to the category of shape-shifting, and to
a stage of thought which looks at body and soul as
one. His wound is the cause of his death, just as
the wounds got by certain hares are held to be the
cause of a certain witch's death.

(5) Transformation into cat-form. — An Hebridean
tale tells how there was once a wedding ; and the
folks went to it all but one young man. He was
asked to the wedding too, but somehow he didn't
go, but his mother went. He stretched himself in
bed and lay awake. Three cats came in by a

1 Folklore as an Historical Science ', 287-288.

108 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

window. When they got in, seeing nobody in they
changed into three girls. The young man saw them
and knew them. They drank up his mother's milk.
He looked at them and they noticed him looking.
They besought him not to tell, and threatened that
if he ever told it would be all the worse for him.
They then left. His mother came back from the
wedding and he at once told her what he saw.
Some time after his mother and their mother had a
quarrel, and his mother cast up to the other the
shapes her daughters had taken. Not long after
this when the young man was on an errand he was
late of returning. A search was made for him, and
he was found dead on the way.

With this compare the strange big cats in the
Fled Brier end? an early Irish tale of the Cuchu-
lainn saga. One night as their portion was assigned
the heroes, three cats from the cave of Cruachan
were let loose to attack them, i.e. three beasts of
magic. Conall and Loigaire made for the rafters,
having- left their food with the beasts. In that wise
they slept till the morrow. Cuchulainn fled not
from his place from the beast which attacked him.
But when it stretched its neck out for eating,
Cuchulainn rave a blow with his sword on the
beast's head, but the blade glided off as 'twere from
stone. Then the cat set itself down. In the circum-
stances Cuchulainn neither ate nor slept. As soon
as it was early morning the cats were gone.

Clearly these cats are representative of another-
world power : and are thought of as one of the
disguises under which the other-world magician

lv. my trans, in Irish Texts Society ed.

CAT FORM 109

tests the hero, one of a series of tests through which
Curoi, such is the magician's name, awards the palm
for bravery to Cuchulainn.

Early Irish is catt, Welsh cath, Gaulish, cattos :
the tribal name in Clan Chattan (the Mackintoshes,
with Cattanachs, Shaws, Davidsons, and other septs)
and in Cataibk, Cataobh, 'Sutherland'; Diuc Chatty
Duke of Sutherland ; the root survives in Caith-
ness (Caitness being heard with old people), all
pointing to a belief in animal kinship, as witnessed
to by the idea of transformation.

(c) Transformation of a hitman being into mare-
formy — "the horse being a blessed animal since our
Saviour was born in a manger." Dornoch is noted
in the annals of witchcraft in Scotland as the place
where the last execution for that supposed crime
took place. Witchcraft ceased to be a capital offence
by Act of Parliament in 1736. The execution at
Dornoch occurred in 1722. The victim was a
woman, who, according to popular belief, turned her
daughter into a pony by her magical arts and got the
devil to shoe it. This belief was more than an un-
conscious reminiscence of the horse's shoe in the
burgh crest. The traditional site of the execution
is the part of Dornoch known as Littleton, where,
in one of the gardens, a stone with 1722 deeply
incised upon it marks the spot.

For illustration I translate a modern narrative
from Tiree which exemplifies fairly recent belief:

11 Once upon a time there were two young lads who
had engaged to serve in the house of a great man.
They had the same food and the same work, yet, in
spite of all, one of them was strong, seemly and

no THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

stout, while the other was daily declining, — and,
what was exceeding strange, every morning he was
very tired as if he were not getting half enough of
food. This was causing great astonishment to
every one, and especially to the lads themselves.
They knew not what it meant nor what they should
do. Thereupon the lad who was seemly and stout
said : ' When we go to bed to-night you will take
my place by the wall and I will go on the side where
you are lying.' Thus they did. They went to bed,
and he who was by the wall slept at once, but
though the other went to bed he slept not ; he kept
awake to see what should happen. While he thus
reflected, who should enter but his mistress with a
horse-bridle in her hand. As soon as she came in
she shook the bridle to his face, which she no sooner
did than he sprang into horse-form (became a horse).
She then took him out and put a saddle on him, and
sprang on his back and rode off. At no length of
time they reached a big house, and she sprang to
the ground and opened a stable-door where were
many horses besides. She tied him there and went
off. Though he was in horse-form he had human
consciousness, inasmuch as he was awake at the time
she shook the bridle at him. Accordingly, when she
went away he began to try whether he could take
the bridle off with his fore-feet. At last he suc-
ceeded, which he no sooner did than he was a man
as formerly. Then he caught the bridle and be-
thought him of contesting with his mistress when
ever she returned.

" Shortly thereafter she came with many more
women like unto her. When he saw his mistress

HORSE AND MARE FORM ill

he shook the bridle at her, as she had done to him,
which he no sooner did than she all at once became
a big beautiful mare. Then he took her out and
saddled her, but instead of going home, what did he
do but go to a smithy and roused the smith. He
requested the smith to put four shoes on her. The
smith replied that he would not at all do so, it was
too late to do such a work. The lad said that he
would give him anything, even a ' white ' note (a
pound sterling), provided he could have her shod.
On hearing this the smith came out and kindled the
fire, and in a short time the house-wife was shod.
Then he made for home. On arriving he took the
bridle off her and she was a woman as formerly.
Thereupon he went to sleep. On the morrow great
sorrow fell on the household, for the mistress was ill.
And, what made everybody wonder, no one was
allowed into her chamber to see her. As things
were in such a case the lad came where his master
was and requested to be permitted to see her. The
master said no, that nobody was allowed to enter.
The lad said that he must needs go. What with
everything he did the lad got in where she was. As
soon as she saw him she scowled at him. He en-
quired how she was. She was not willing to answer,
but he said to her : ' Stretch out your plut (paw,
hand),' which she would not do. He seized hold of
her, pulled out her hand, and what was it but that
she had a horse-shoe thereon, and on the other hand
as well, likewise a horse-shoe on each foot. He
looked at her and said : 'Well you know what this
means and the dreadful work you were at. Now
give me your troth that I shall never either see or

U2 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

hear of your being at this disgraceful work, and I
will take off the shoes.' She pledged to him her
word, and he removed the shoes, and all was well
thereafter. In a short time the lean lanky fellow
grew stout and strong, and everybody about the
place had peace. Such, for you, is the tale of the
famous witches."

The original, which I owe to the kindness of a
Tireeman, the Rev. J. MacCallum, Manse of Assynt,
is as follows :

"Bha aon uair ann da ghille 6g a bha air fasdadh
ann an tigh duine mh6ir. Bha iad air an aon bhiadh
agus air an aon obair, ach an deidh gach ni bha fear
dhiubh gu laidir, coltach, reamhar, agus bha fear eile
dol air ais gach latha, agus ni bha gle" iongantach bha
e anabharrach sgith a h-uile maduinn mar nach biodh
e faighinn leth gu leor do chadal. Bha so a' cur
moran iongantais air gach h-aon agus gu sonruichte
orra fein. Cha robh fios aca de bu chiall do no de
a dheanadh iad. An sin thubhairt esan a bha gu
coltach, reamhar: "Nuair a theid sinn a luighe
nochd theid thu-sa ann am aite-sa ris a bhalla agus
theid mi-se air an taobh air a bheil thu-sa.' Rinn
iad mar sin. Chaidh iad do'n leabaidh agus chaidil
e-san a chaidh ris a' bhalla anns a mhionaid ach ged
a chaidh a feur eile luighe cha do chaidil e. Dh'fhan
e 'na dhusgadh fiach de thachradh. 'Nuair a bha e
a' smuaintinn air na nithean so c6 thainig a steach
ach a bhan-mhaighstir agus srian eich aice 'na laimh.
Cho luath 'sa thainig i steach chrath i an t-srian m'a
choinneamh agus cha bu luatha rinn i so na leum
e-san 'na each. An sin thug i mach e agus chuir i
diollaid air a dhruim. An sin leum i ga mharcachd

HORSE AND MARE FORM 113

agus dh'fhalbh i leis. Ann an ceann nine nach robh
fada rainig iad tigh mor agus thainig i-se air lar agus
dh'fhosgail i dorus stabuill far an robh m6ran each
eile. Cheangail i ann an sin e agus dh'fhalbh i.
Ged a bha e-san 'na each bha fathast mothachadh
duine aige a chionn gun robh e 'na dhusgadh an uair
a chrath i an t-srian ris. Mar sin 'nuair a dh'fhalbh
i-se thoisich e-san air fiachuinn am b'urrainn dha an
t-srian a thoirt dheth le 'chasan toisich. Mu dheireadh
chaidh aige air so a dheanamh. Agus cho luatha
's a thachair so bha e 'na dhuine mar bha e roimhe.
An sin rug e air an t-srian agus thubhairt e ris fein
gum fiachadh e i ri a bhan-mhaighstir 'nuair a
thigeadh i air a h-ais.

" Tachdan beag na dheidh sin thainig i fein agus
moran de mhnathan eile a bha coltach rithe fein.
'Nuair chunnaic e-san a bhan-mhaighstir chrath e
an t-srian rithe mar a rinn i-se rise-san agus cho luath
's a rinn e so leum i-se 'na cabal mor briagha. An
sin thug e mach i agus chuir e oirre an diollaid ach
an aite dol dhachaigh 's e rinn e dol gu tigh
gobhainn agus a chur air a chois. Dh'iarr e air
a ghobhainn ceithir chruidhean a chur oirre. Thu-
bhairt an gobhainn nach cuireadh gu dearbh, gu
robh e ro an-moch air-son dol a dheanamh a leithid
so de dh'obair. Thubhairt an gille gun tugadh e ni
sam bith, eadhon not gheal ach na cruidhean
fhaotainn oirre. 'Nuair a chual an gobhainn so
thainig e mach agus bheothaich e an teine agus
ann an uine bhig bha bean a' bhaile air a cruidheadh
agus an sin ghabh e dhachaigh. 'Nuair a rainig
e an tigh thug e dhith an t-srian agus bha i 'na
bean mar a bha i roimhe. 'Na dheidh sin chaidh

ii4 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

e-san a chadal. Air an la maireach bha bron m6r
air an tigh sin oir bha bean an tighe x gu tinn. Agus
ni a bha 'cur iongantais air gach h-aon cha robh
neach sam bith air a ligeil a steach ga faicinn.
'Nuair a bha so mar so thainig e-san, an gille,
far an robh a mhaighstir agus thubhairt e e-san
a ligeil a steach ga faicinn. Thubhairt am maighstir
nach leigeadh, nach robh neach sam bith ri dol
a steach ach thubhairt an gille gu feumadh e-san dol
a steach. Leis a h-uile rud a bh'ann fhuair e
steach far an robh i. Cho luath 's a chunnaic i e
chas i sgreang oirre.

u Dh'fhoighneac e dhith ciamar a bha i. Cha
robh i air-son freagairt a thoirt dha ach thubhairt
e-san rithe : Sin a mach do phluit.2 Cha deanadh
i so agus rug e oirre is thug e mach a lamh
agus de a bha ann ach gun robh cruidh eich
oirre agus air an laimh eile cuideachd, agus air
gach cois. Sheall e oirre agus thubhairt e rithe :
' Tha fios agad gu math de is ciall da so agus
de an obair uamhasach a bha thu 'deanamh. A
nis thoir dhomh-sa t'fhacal nach faic agus nach
cluinn mi iomradh ort gu brath tuilleadh ris an
obair mhaslach so agus bheir mi dhiot na cruidhean/
Thug i dha a facal agus thug e-san dhith na cruidh-
ean agus bha gach ni gu math tuilleadh. Ann an
uine bhig dh'fhas an gille bha caol truagh gu
leathan laidir agus bha sith aig gach neach mu'n

tigh.

M Sin agaibh naigheachd nam buitsichean mora ! '

It is to be remarked that a variant of this Tiree

tale exists in Ireland, where it has quite recently

1 Ta'a — Tiree dialect. 2 Sort of slang for ' paw, hand.'

HORSE AND MARE FORM 115

been printed : Ltib Na Caillighe, narrated by
Michael Mhag Ruaidhri, and edited with vocabulary
by Mr. J. Lloyd.1 The story is located at The
Loop, a tiny hamlet in Ballymulligan townland,
five miles to the east of Moneymore, Co. Derry.
The location has been motived in part by the
word Lub, usually meaning 'a bend,' 'a curve/
having the secondary sense of * quirk, trick.' Hence
' Liib na Caillighe ' means also c the Hag's Trick,'
'the Old Wife's Trickery.' The Irish version is
located in Ulster, the province which most abounded
with wizardry and the black art, according to the
Irish folk- tale. This may be a remnant of old
tradition referring to some relics of primitive rites
among the Picts of Ulidia of old. The secret was
revealed to the lad by an old woman who lived
with her daughter not far off from the farm where
he was employed. The details further differ in that
the Tiree version ascribes human reason to the
lad while in horse-form, inasmuch as the bridle
was shaken over him while awake. But the Ulster
version has it : "If thou be asleep when the hag
comes in, she will shake the bridle above thy head
in bed, and through the might of her druidism thou
wilt arise up towards her, and she will put the bridle
on thee." This done, the Hag rides him during
the night throughout the length and breadth of the
land, which causes his feeling quite exhausted as
he awakes from sleep in the morning. The plan
advised by the wise woman friend in the Ulster
version is that the lad is to keep awake by tighten-
ing a waxed flaxen cord around his big toe, so as

1 At ha Cliath, Connradh na Gaedhilge, 1910.

n6 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

to ward off all sleep. The Hag comes to his bed
thrice, but finds him awake : the third time she
goes off in high dudgeon, as it was near midnight ;
hence " it was no time for her to delay about it."
Apparently, unless her bridle had worked its magic
by that hour, she was left powerless, for the Hag
retired to her bed where the lad, who went thither
at cock-crow, found her fast aleep, — "her snoring
would fetch deaf kine from the woods." He shook
the bridle, which was at the head of the bed, over
her, and the Hag became a mare. At daybreak, as
he was returning, he came upon a smithy. He
asks the smith to shoe the mare. The smith was
in great haste, for he took them for fairy-folk from
the hills, and he was not long about his work. On
reaching the house he took her into her room, took
off the bridle, when she resumed her woman-shape
as before, save that she had shoes on her feet and
hands, and she as dead as a herring, her blood being
well-nigh shed through the steel nails in the shoes.
He left her in that shape, and went to sleep himself.
Her husband was good and just, and saw that her
wizardry won her the deserts she merited. We do
not hear that the shoes were taken off her as in
the Tiree version. The Irish version adds that the
lad finally married the daughter of her who instructed
him how to cope with the Hag's wiles.

The only magic-bridle in living Highland folklore
is that attributed to the Willox family : it has the
gift of calling up in the water-pail for the purpose
the apparition of the worker of the evil-magic ; it
makes the figure of the absent one present. The
bridle or bit thereof was said to have been got

HORSE AND MARE FORM 117

from the water-horse. It is a relic of the bridle

of Manannan's steed, the horse of the lord of

ocean.

The Clan Leod are thought of as having a close

connection with the horse. It is mentioned in the

rhyme :

Siol nan Le6dach
Siol a' chapuill
Bhacaich sp6gaich
Bheathaicheadh air
Moll is f61ach
Air dubhadan dubh
Is gulm e6rna.

i.e. the progeny of Leod, the progeny of the horse,
lame and awkward, fed on chaff and rank grass,
on the black " beard of dried oats," and singed barley-
straw. This curious rhyme points to the horse as
held once in special esteem among this clan whose
name is of Norwegian origin. The horse may
have been to them an object of imitation, and in
some ways a sort of ideal. A modern philosopher
remarks on the English : " they have forgotten that
they are horses though the fact remains. Do they
not still worship their totem at their chief festivals,
abstain from eating it, and pay more attention to
its breeding than to their own."1 The mythic
Hengist and Horsa contain some such reference.

Gregorson Campbell states:2 In the Hebrides a
horse is supposed to have reference to the Clan
Mac Leod. The surname of horses is Mac Leod,
as the Coll bard said to the Skye bard :

1 Craveth Read, Natural and Social Morals, p. 85.

2 Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands, p. 269.

n8 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

1__ — 1 1 -,1 .

Often rode I with my bridle

The race which you and your wife belong to.

= Is trie a mharcaich mi le m' shrein
An dream g'am bheil thu fhein 's do bhean.

Under this phase of the theriomorphic soul I may
include More Na Maighe of Lochaber tradition.
Although I find O'Briens Irish Dictionary gives
more as 'hog or swine/ it seems but a variant of
marc, ' horse ' (whence marcach, * rider '), the word
which gives his name to King Mark of Cornwall,
who is fabled to have had horse's ears. The
legend associates More Na Maighe with Caoilte,
but belongs to a much more primitive strata of myth
than the Fe^inn Cycle. She is credited with being
on foot as swift as the lightning ; Caoilte and the
More have the speed of the venomous winter wind,
but the More is swifter than Caoilte, the fleetest of
the F£inn. In their contest she outran him. As
the glens were filling and foretelling of the storms
and the clouds were lowering Caoilte had recourse
to the device of springing aloft and seizing hold of
her by the mane, nor did she ever perceive he was
hanging to her. At long last, as sun was setting,
More Na Maighe lay down by the foot of an oak
tree, worn out by the heat, and her breath visible as
vapour or mist. Caoilte standing by her side taunts
her with her speed being the slower because of her
weariness. The impudent reply to her query if he
is really there is that Caoilte is the better for that
race-before-a-leap. He will now proceed and bids
her fare-well.

"It is age that has sufficed for me," she said.
" But I have had my own day and I hope now to

MORC NA MAIGHE 119

go home (literally, I am not of a hope that I will not
now go home)." There we have the death-sigh of
an old order of mythic beings. " Happy wilt thou
be, thou shaggy hairy ugly thing, if thy four feet
keep pace with what thy two eyes see," said Caoilte
on meeting her. In this legend we have to do with
more than a mere personification of cloud shapes,
with an aspect really of the theriomorphic soul. It
belongs to an early stage of the process of belief
which led to the forming of deities named Tarvos
(the bull), Moccos (the pig), Epona (the goddess of
horses), Damona (the goddess of cattle), Mullo (the
ass), among the Gauls and to the ancient Britons
having held the hen, the goose and the hare as
taboo, as not to be killed or eaten.

The foregoing brief summary, sufficient for my
present purpose, is from living tradition. I give now
the original Gaelic, which I owe to Mr. Kenneth
Macleod, who kindly wrote down for me such
incidents as he remembers, and states that he is not
quite certain whether the More was an each-uisge or
an each-coilleadh or a combination of both.

Rhys inclines to take the Irish More, correspond-
ing to the Welsh March ab Meirchion, i.e. ' Steed
son of Steeding,' as a sort of Irish Pluto. In the
Book of Leinster (fol. i6oa) More (Margg, Marg)
figures as steward of the King of the Fomori. Marc
is the name of one of the foes killed by Cuchulainn
on the tain {Book of Dun Cow, 70b). More appears
as {a) having horse's ears, (b) a king, (e) captain
of a great fleet : he is horse-man, a monster sharing
the qualities of both.1

1 For his Midas-like story see Y Cymmrodor, 6, 181-3 ; cf. for
Breton, Rev. Celt. ii. 507-8, re le Roi de Portzmarch.

120 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

The original runs :

u More Na Maighe. — Latha do Chaoilte 'na aonar
anns a' Chreig ghuanaich, cluinnear farum-fad-as na
fadhaide anns a' choillidh ghruamaich, agus gabhar
a mach air a h-ionnsaidh. Co thachair ris ach gum
b' e More Na Maighe, agus i 'ga deisearadh fein an
suil na greine. ' Gum bu sheatha 1 duit fein, a
Chaoilte/ ars' ise, 'ma bhrathas2 tu air an Fheinn
mus beir an cuan siar an nochd air a' ghrein.' - 'S
gum bu sheatha duit fein, a phiullagaich pheallagaich
ghrainnde,' arsa Caoilte, 'ma chumas do cheithir
chasan ris na chi do dha shuil.' Bha sid air a cois
le clise dhealan 's le fuaim thorrunn, agus thugar a'
ghrian de Chaoilte. ' Tha Mactalla,' ars' ise, ' air
luirg na fadhaide, agus bitheamaid-ne a nis air a
luirg-san.' Mach a ghabh iad le cheile mar ghaoith
ghuinich gheamhraidh, 's bha an ceum-toisich aig
Caoilte. Bha na glinn a lionadh 's bha na mill a*
sineadh, 's bha an ceum-toisich a nis aice-se. ' Is
m6r do luathas, a mhuirc,' arsa Caoilte. ' Cha
mhoillid e sin, a Chaoilte,' ars' ise, agus i toirt
spreadhaidh eile aisde. ' Feuchaidh sinn ealaidh
eile a nis,' arsa Caoilte ris f hein ; 's thugar duibh-
leum as, 's beirear air mhuing oirre, agus cha tug ise
an aire riamh gun robh e nis an crochadh rith. Mu
dheireadh 's mu dhiu, aig dol fodha na greine, laigh
More Na Maighe aig bonn craoibh-dharraich, 's an
teas 'ga ruighinn 's a h-anail ruith 'na ceo. ' Is
moillid do luathas an sgios, a mhuirc/ arsa Caoilte,

1 Gum bu sheatha (spelling doubtful) duit fein = * happy, lucky, may
you be.' [Probably sheagha ; cf. Irish seaghais, ' pleasure, joy, delight '
— G. H.] Sheamha would be possible, only the e has no nasality.

2 Ma bhrathas tu, etc. = ' If you locate, discover.'

THINGS SACRED 121

's e seasamh air a beulaibh. ' A bheil thu sin,
a bheadagain?' ars' ise. 'Tha,' ars' esan ; 'is
fheairrde mi an roid ud — theid mi nis gu h-astar —
slan leat.' * Is i an aois a dh' fhoghainn domh,' arsa
More Na Maighe ; ' ach bha mo latha fein agam —
cha'n 'eil mi 'n duil nach teid mi dhachaidh a nis.' "

(d) As regards fowl, I can only find few apposite
references : Conaire the Great, who was held to be
descended from a fowl, was interdicted from eating
its flesh.1 At \ Goose Fair ' at Great Crosby, Lanca-
shire, the goose was held as too sacred to eat. In
parts of Scotland, too, there was a prejudice against
eating the goose,2 it being too sacred.

Another prejudice existed against white cows.
Dalyell in his Darker Superstitions of Scotland
mentions the existence of a prejudice against white
cows, — which seem to have been held as consecrated
animals. And I knew a man in the Highlands who
could on no account eat pork : he would turn quite
ill on being told that such was given him disguised
in any form. I can but remind the reader of the
sacredness and potency of swine's blood to cure
warts, and of the story of Diarmud, whose life
depended on that of the venomous boar. This
last might admit of an explanation different from
the preceding.

(e) The soul in deer-form. — In the earliest
documents of the Ossianic cycle it is Finn and not
Ossian who plays the role of poet. Yet, in the
prose tales, dialogues and lyrical monologues are

1 O'Curry's Manners and Customs, 1. ccclxx.

2 Gordon- Cumming's Hebrides, 369; transformation into the shape
of a wild goose was known in some parts of Wales (Trevelyan, 214) ;
cf. Trans. Gael. Soc. Inv. 25, 132 for witch in hen-form.

122 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

interspersed, and these verses are put in the mouth
of the persons concerned just as if they were the
poetical composers of the same. Windisch (Ir.
Texte, i. 63) supposes that in this wise Ossian
has developed into a poetic figure. The poems
which, in the saga, were put into his mouth, came
to be regarded as his work till they became
gradually typical of a whole species of literature.
In support of his hypotheses Windisch points out
that the headings of the poems in point are to the
effect : Ossin or Finn cecinit, — a heading corre-
sponding to the formula of the Cuchulainn cycle
when poetical pieces are by way of dialogue and
quasi-dramatically incorporated in the prose-tale, to
wit : ' Conid and ro chachain Conckobur inso ' = \ Here
Conchobair sung as follows.' From this to Auctor
hujus Ossln, the formula of the Book of Lismore, is
but a small step. No oife, too, who was not versed
in poetic art could be admitted into the Feinn, as
Keating reports, but I have little doubt this was the
invention of those poets of mediaeval times who
wanted to glorify their office. I would in particular
point out that the mediaeval craving after an
etymology for the name Ossian came to strengthen
the tendency just referred to. In modern times it
is traditionally narrated that he had colg an fheidh,
'deer's hair' (fur, pile), upon his temple, and that in
virtue of having this on a corner (oisinn) of his brow
he was called ' Corner,' i.e. Oisein. Further, in
the Book of the Feinn one reads the tradition of
1870. "When Oisein was born in the mountains, it
was so that if his mother licked him as deer licked
their calves, he was to be a deer like his mother.

DEER-FORM 123

If not he was to be a man like Fionn his father.
She had so much of the deer's nature in her that she
began to lick the child, and she gave one sweep of
her tongue to his temple. The deer's hair (colg an
fheidh) grew on the corner of his brow at once.
When his mother saw that, she had so much of the
woman's nature left that she wished her son to be
a man, she stopped licking him, and he grew up
to be a man, and they called him Oisein (i.e. Angle
or corner). He was the best bard in the world"
(L. na F. p. 198).

In the above version Ossian is Cuchulainn's
nephew, for his mother is the sister of Cuchulainn
mac an Dualtaich, under spells (geasan). Fionn
had been under a taboo that he would marry any
female creature he might chance to meet. He fell
in with a deer, and by putting his finger under his
wisdom-tooth he knew the' deer was an enchanted
woman. Here we have the animal parentage of
Ossian, of which account the above is but the after-
glow. On the margin of the Book of Leinster
( 1 1 60) there is the following reference to the mother
of Ossian :

mathair Diarmata o'n Dail
ingen churraig meic Chathair
is blai derg de'n Bhanbai bhrais
mathair Ossine amnais
ticedh [si] iricht eilte
i comdail na dibeirge
codernad Ossine de
ri Blai ndeirg irricht eilte.

LL. 164 marg. supp.

i.e. 'The mother of Diarmad, from Dail, daughter of
Currag mac Cathar; and Blai Derg, from the rushing

124 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Banba, the mother of the formidable Ossian. In a
doe's shape she used to come and join the outlawed
band, and thus it was that Ossian was begotten upon
Blai Derg disguised as a doe' (cf. Sil. Gad. 522).

According to a Barra version Fionn's first wife
Grainne, enchanted in the form of a hind, was
mother to Ossian. It was a fairy sweetheart that
put her under spells. The fairy sweethearts used
always to be at that kind of work. It was on a
pretty little green island which is called Eilean
Sandraigh (or otherwise on a sea-rock in Loch-
nan-Ceall, in Arasaig) that Ossian was born
(Leabhar na Feinne, p. 199).

The soul in deer-form is met with in another
story connected with Forsair Choir an t-Sldhe,
' The Forester of Fairy Cony.' I give it as told
by the late Alexander Macpherson of Kingussie.

" The White Hind. — Somewhere in this Garden
of Sleep (Kingussie Cemetery) hallowed by St.
Columba, although no trace can now be found of
the actual grave, there rests the dust of the
celebrated forester of the Fairy Corry, a native of
Cowal in Argyllshire. This hero was of a branch
of the MacLeods of Raasay, and being fair-haired
his descendants were called Clann Mhic-ille bhain —
that is, children of the fair (literally white) haired
man, who now call themselves by the surname of
Whyte. The forester was universally believed to
have had a Leannan-Sith (a fairy sweetheart), who
followed him wherever he went.

" Mr. Duncan Whyte, of Glasgow, one of the
eighth generation in direct descent from the forester,
communicated to me in Gaelic sundry very interest-

THE WHITE HIND AS FAIRY LOVE 125

ing traditions which have come down regarding his
famous ancestor. In the year 1644 the Earl of
Montrose was in the field with an army on behalf
of King Charles I. ; while the Earl of Argyll had
the chief command of the Covenanters' forces.
Montrose was burning and pillaging in the north
when Argyll received instructions to go in pursuit
of him. The forester was in Argyll's army, and the
fairy sweetheart, in the shape of a white hind,
followed the troops wherever they went. While
they were resting in the neighbourhood of Ruthven
Castle, in Badenoch, some of the officers began to
mock Argyll for allowing the hind to be always
following the army. Their ridicule roused his
wrath, and he commanded his men to fire at the
hind. This was done without a particle of lead
piercing her hair. Some observed that the forester
was not firing, although pointing his gun at the hind
like the rest, and he was accused to Argyll. He
then received strict orders to fire at the hind. ' I
will fire at your command, Argyll,' said the forester,
1 but it will be the last shot that I shall ever fire/
and it happened as he said. Scarcely was the
charge out of his gun when he fell dead on the field.
The fairy gave a terrific scream and rose like a
cloud of mist up the shoulder of the neighbouring
mountain, and from that time was never seen
following the army. It has been believed by every
generation since that the fairy left a charm with
the descendants of the forester, which shall stick
to them to the twentieth generation."1

1 Glasgow Herald^ Aug. 20, 1910, by the late Alex. Macpherson,
Kingussie.

126 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

From Irish tradition I take the following example.
It is the story of Oisin Born of A Doe in Cremlin
(West Mayo) :

" One fine sunny day the seven heavy battalions
of Fionn encamped at the foot of Murrn, in the
land of lakes ; the son of Devvra sat on the top
of a hill, looking over rocks and cliffs where there
were only wild wolves and badgers : near him
was Gaul, son of Morni. Fifty strong men had
charge of the hounds in leash : the hounds running
at liberty were put under care of the hunters of
Leinster and of Munster.

" A hawk was making melodious sounds for the
children of Ruanan who were led by Caoilte : the
baying of the hounds in the woods drove the deer
and wild beasts into the darkest shades and caves
of the glens.

" A young doe rose up in the chase : Fionn, the
active white-handed hero, saw her beauty ; he gave
vehement chase and took her to be his wife.1

" This lovely doe he shielded from attack of
hounds : he let her escape : his eye followed her as
she bounded from bush to bush, till she reached
Cremlin of the woody thickets.

" There the doe remained till I was born amidst
the branches, instead of a kid : by her side I ran like
a kid, sucking my mother's milk till I was seven

1 The doe is some fair lady bound by enchantment, but able, for a
short time only, to appear to her lover in her natural figure. The
enchanter in this instance permits her offspring to assume the human
form. Bran was the daughter of Fionn by a lady who came to him as
an enchanted hound, but the enchanter threw his spells over her as
well as over her mother. Oisin was half-brother to Bran, who,
instinctively, found out the relationship when the hounds seized Oisin.

OISIN BORN OF A DOE 127

years old : wild in the woods I ran till I was three
times seven years old. Boomin, the tuneful foster
mother of Fionn, came into the woods to pluck
berries : she ran to Fionn and told him that in the
thickets she had seen an animal like a red, wild
man.

11 All the Fenii gathered together to find out the
truth of the story which ran from man to man.

" To prevent my escape they placed two hounds in
Aughavilla, two in Aughavalla, two in Auchagower,
two in Ogoul near the sea, two on the ridge of
Lenane, two on the dizzy heights of Achil, two in
Cuirrsloova, two swift hounds on the hill of Tarra-
mud, and at the foot of Binna they placed the son
of Boovil, with his two swift dogs straining at the
leash. The melodious voices of the hounds roused
the stately stags of Barraglauna, does, badgers, and
boars of the glens stole away. At evening's hour
they raised the spear to stop the chase : they rested
their hunting spears on their shoulders : they slept in
Thauver of much people.

" At sunrise next day Fionn, in his hunting dress,
followed his melodious hounds through the woody
glens : they started me and the doe my mother : all
day they chased us: when the sun went down I was
tired : the hound Sheeve came up and caught me by
the hair of my head : the doe left me, alone. Then
came Shrocco in strong running, and took a sufficient
hold of my back : Guntaugh seized me by the left
side, and Creautagh by the right : Fuiltaugh held
me by the loin, and the hound Verran by the leg.
Bran came running up, she was only nine months
old and not yet strong in chase : when she came up

128 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

she began to lick my wounds, she was kind and
gentle, she treated me well.

" Caoilte was the first hunter who came to me ;
after him all the Fenii ; they led me by the hand to
Fionn. When the son of Cumhal felt the strength
of the boiies of my arms he said, ' These arms and
hands are like those of the children of Baoisgne.'

" Then the Fenii came round in friendship : they
brought shears : they sheared me from head to foot :
they washed me and put clothing upon me in place
of the coarse hair which covered me before. Fionn
and all the Fenii taught me to speak. Thus was I
born in Cremlin of the shady thickets."1

The counsel given by Ossian to his mother,
Highland legend expresses thus:2

Mas tu mo mhathair 's gur fiadh thu
Eirich mu'n eirich a' ghrlan ort.

= Mother mine, if deer thou be
Arise ere sun arise on thee.

This counsel was given, according to Miss Tolmie,
in order that the deer, i.e. his mother, might break
the spell which bound her before Ossian was born.

The name Ossian, Irish Oisin, i.e. little deer or
os, is a diminutive from Gadhelic os, deer, cognate
with Cymric uch, English ox; not from the Saxon
'O swine, as Dr. Zimmer imagined, which in Gadhelic
would yield a long initial vowel, whereas it is short.

In addition to that of Ossian, which denotes ' little
deer,' there are many other names of animal parent-

1 Pp. 221-224 of Poems of Oisin, Bard of Erin. From the Irish by
John Hawkins Simpson. London, 1857. The section cited comes
under the heading of ' Mayo Mythology.'

2 Campbell of ' I slay MSS., Advocates' Library, vol. xxii. p. 8.

NAMES OF ANIMAL ORIGIN 129

age in Gadhelic : MacEchern, MacLellan, Mac-
Kichan, MacMahon, MacCulloch, derive from the
names for horse, wolf, bear, boar ; Shaw seemingly
is from Sithech 'wolf,' as is also M 'Keith ; the
Prince of Teffia, The O'Caharny, had as his official
title ' The Wolf.' Malcolm, through the Gaelic
Maol-Coluim, derives ultimately from Columba,
1 dove/ Adamnan gives the older diminutive form
Oisseneus, from Gaelic Oissene, and there is the
female form Ossnat, as well as the tribal name
Ossraighe, whence Ossory. Nicknames are still
given to persons in the Highlands, and such names
as 'the lion,' ' the jackdaw,' 'the little horse,' 'the
rat,' 'the eagle' were current a few years ago.
Analogy thus strengthens the conception as to the
name Ossin being given from his deer parentage.

The Ossraighe have been held to be a pre-
Milesian race. Rhys derived os here from Basque
otso, ' a wolf.' But compare Gamhanraighe, ' the
calf-tribe ' ; Conraighe, ' the hound tribe ' ; Sogh-
raighe, ' the bitch-tribe ? ' as Mr. MacNeill renders
the names in the New Ireland Review}

The same idea occurs in another old tale of the
transformation of Tuan mac Cairill, who tells the
story to St. Finnian ofMoville. "As I was asleep
one night I saw myself passing into the shape of a
stag (dul i richt oiss allaid). . . . After this, from the
time that I was in the shape of a stag, I was the
leader of the herds of Ireland, and wherever I went
there was a large herd of stags about me (bdi alma
mdr do ossaib alta immum). This Tuan afterwards

lv. MacBain's * Study of Highland Personal Names,' The Celtic
Review^ 1905, p. 71 ; and Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness^ vol. xx. 304-305.

130 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

passes into the shape of a boar, then into that of a
hawk, then into that of a salmon, which on being-
eaten by Cairell's wife, he was reborn as human.
He was of great age when Patrick came to Ireland
and was baptized, and he ' alone believed in the
king of all things with his elements.' Every pedi-
gree that is in Ireland, 'tis from Tuan, son of Cairell,
the origin of that history is. For he had conversed
with the ages and was known as Tuan, the son of
Starn, the brother of Partholon (whence Mac
Pharlane, -Farlane), the first man who came to
Ireland. One hundred years was he in man's shape,
eighty as a stag, twenty as a boar, a hundred as an
eagle, twenty as a salmon, so that three hundred and
twenty years elapsed until he was reborn a man."

The Colloquy tells us that Ossian went to the sid
of ucht Cleitigh (sfd octa Cleitig), where was his
mother Blai, daughter of Derc surnamed dianscothach,
i.e. ■ of the forcible language.'1 In another part of the
Colloquy we read of Ubhalroiscc, from the Sid Ochta
Cleitig in the plain of Bregia.2 This passage
enumerates the chiefs and territorial lords of the
Tuatha de Danann, and it follows that the deer
parentage of Ossian connects him with the Tuatha dL

Again, in the Highlands we meet with the deer
as sacred, as possessing the theriomorphic soul. In
the Island of Rum it was thought that if one of the
family of Lachlin shot a deer in the mountain of
Finchra that he would die suddenly or contract a
distemper which would soon prove fatal. Probably
the life of the Lachlins was bound up with the deer

10'Grady's Silva Gad. p. 102 of the Eng. vol.
2 Id. 225 ; also Irische Texte, 4 ser. 1 heft, p. 140.

THE THERIOMORPHIC SOUL 131

on Finchra as the life of the Hays was bound up
with the mistletoe on Errol's oak.1 One recollects
that the Gauls are referred to as sacrificing to
Artemis or Diana (v. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology^

iv. 1592).

The deer is thus clearly a phase of the therio-
morphic soul, and thus we can account for the
survival of stag-ceremonies connected with church
worship in Britain. Thus, Camden says as to the
site of St. Paul's, London : " Some have imagined
that a temple of Diana formerly stood here, and
when I was a boy I have seen a stag's head fixed
upon a spear (agreeably enough to the sacrifice of
Diana) and conveyed about within the church with
great solemnity and sound of horns. And I have
heard that the stag which the family of Bawd in
Essex were bound to pay for certain lands used to be
received at the steps of the church by the priests in
their sacerdotal robes, and with garlands of flowers on
their heads. Certain it is this ceremony savours more
of the worship of Diana and of Gentile errours than
of the Christian religion." 2 Statues and stone-altars
to Diana have been found in the neighbourhood.5
The ' playing of the stag,' referred to in penitential
books and homilies, points in the same direction.
Men on New Year's Day clothed themselves in the
skin of a stag, with its horns upon their heads, and
were accompanied by other men dressed in woman's
clothing. In this costume with licentious songs and
drinking, they proceeded to the doors of the churches,

1 Frazer's Golden Bought 1st ed. vol. ii. 363.

2 Camden's Britannia, by Gough, ii. 81.

3 References in Gomme's Governance of London, p. 112.

132 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

where they danced and sung with extraordinary-
antics. Tacitus, in his Germania, tells us of a priest
clothed as a woman, and when men first usurped the
office of priestess there is little doubt that they
clothed as women. Hence the men dressed as
women who occur in so many Twelfth Day, May
Day and Midsummer Day celebrations are, I think,
fossils of the old priestesses, often occurring as fossils
of the old sacrificial animal. The ' playing of the stag '
at the church door seems to me, therefore, another
relic of the old religious rites accompanied by choral
dance and licentious song.1 And I may refer to the
stags' horns which I have seen four years ago in the
church of Abbots Bromley, Staffs., which are carried
by the mummers who annually enact the ' Hobby
Horse/

With the deer-mother of Ossian, one may compare
the story of the Deer Park in Benares, where Buddha
first caused the wheel of the good to revolve. The
story tells of a king who was one of the former
incarnations of Bodhisattva Shakyamuni.

Moved by the entreaty of a mother-doe to save its
offspring, the Deer- Bodhisattva approached the king
on her behalf. The king said : "... I am a deer in
man's form. Though you are in appearance a lower
animal, you are in heart a human being. ... If
endowed with a loving heart, though a bear in form,
one is human. . . ." 2

1 Karl Pearson's Chances of Death, ii. 19 ; in vol. ii. 64 n. he adds :
u There are a considerable number of local saints, — fossils of district
goddesses, — who have the roe or stag as their attribute." On the Cult
of the Stag, cf. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 14, 134.

2 P. 185 of Sermons of a Buddhist Abbot,hy Soyer Shaku (Chicago
Open Court Publishing Co.).

THE DIVINE BULL 133

(f) Transformation and Incarnation into Bull-
form. The Divine Bull ( Tarbh) of the Epos and of
Legend. — It may seem a strange thing to give a
great tale in which the leading incidents turn on the
possession of a bull the title of Tain Bo Crialnge,
the Foray (or Driving) of the Kine of Cualnge.
But all Tdna according to the old Gadhelic categories
fall under the title of Tain B6 ; and besides, the
Bull sought is of super-animal origin ; it is the
seventh form assumed by the swine-herd of the gods,
for the Donn Cualnge had (1) a human form, (2)
the form of a raven, (3) that of a seal, sea-dog,
(4) that of an eminent warrior, (5) the form of a
phantom, (6) that of a worm or moth, (7) that of
a bull. It is distinctly stated in the Tain that the
Donn of Cualnge had human reason : ' atchuala
Dond Cualngi anni sein acus bae ciall dunetta aice'1
= ' the Dond of C. heard this, for it had human
understanding/ The two bulls were incarnations of
rival swine-herds from the Sid.2 ' The Begetting
of the Two Swine-herds ' forms a tale in the Book of
Leinsterf Friuch and Riucht were their names,
"and there was also friendship between them, viz.,
both possessed the lore of paganism, and used to
shape themselves into any shape, as did Mongan
the son of Fiachna." They underwent various trans-
formations :
^ . . . they were two stags . . .

They were two champions wounding each other.

They Were two spectres, either of them terrifying
the other.

1 Windisch's ed., 1. 6162 ; and Hull, p. 225.

2 Faraday, Translation of Tain, ix. 3 Nutt's Bran, ii. 58.

134 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

They were two dragons, either of them beating (?)
the snow on the land of the other. They dropped
down from the air and were two worms. One
of them went into the well of Glass Cruind in
Cualnge, where a cow of Dare mac Fiachnai
drunk it up ; and the other went into the well
of Garad in Connaught, where a cow of Medb
and Ailill's drank it, so that from them sprang
the two bulls, the Whitehorn Ai and the Donn
of Cualnge.

I suggest that we have here to do with the Tarbh
Boibhre1 of living Highland tradition. Boibre is
given in O'Davoren's glossary and explained as
from boabartach abairt amail in mboin, i.e. ' cow-
behaviour, behaving like the cow.' It was conceived
as a sort of hermaphrodite lusting to graze at a loch
side along with cows. From recent tradition I
know of the Tarbh Boibhre having been spoken
of; the description given pointed to some mythic
animal often emerging from deep inland lochs — for
instance, Loch Bruiach in Inverness-shire — and
capable of assuming the form of a bull or of a cow
at pleasure, and of emitting a peculiar cry like to
that of powerful birds in the night time. I have
come across a fuller description in the Campbell of

1 The word rhymes with oighre, but might be spelt boidhbhre, as if
from bo + od + ber, with meaning of cow-giver, cow-bestowing.
Different is boirche, 'a large hind,5 O'Brien's Irish Dictio?iary, 1832 ;
others give it as 'buffalo,' and Mac Bain suggests alliance with
L. ferus, E. bear. Dineen in his Irish Dictionary under ortha gives
tarbh ortha, 'an enchanted bull.' A writer in an extinct Highland
periodical writes tarbh fhaire {The Gael, vol. v. 50). In West
Highland Tales Campbell writes tarbh eithre. These are all corrupt
forms. Final -bh in tarbh would tend to change initial b into bh in
a rare word like boibhre.

THE BOOBRIE 135

Islay MSS., which I reproduce. It is entitled The
Boobrie, and is thus described in its three-fold
manifestations or imaginary emanations.

(a) The Boobrie as Bird. — " This species of
animal which within the last century was by no
means rare in the districts of Upper Lochaber and
Argyll, has for many years been totally extinct,
the assigned cause being the extent to which heather
burning has been practised in those districts for so
many years past. Very long heather was the
natural resting place and shelter of the Boobrie.
According to the most authentic reports the animal
was endowed with the power of assuming at pleasure
the forms of three different animals, viz., those of
a most enormous and ferocious water-bird (when he
was designated the Boobrie), of a water-horse or
each-uisg, and of a water-bull or tarbh-uisg. The
first of these was the one which he preferred
assuming. I intend giving a short description of
him in these three various forms — first as the
Boobrie from the report of an eye-witness, who not
only saw him but waded up to his shoulders into a
very large muir loch on a very cold morning in
February in the hope of getting a shot at him, but
when he had reached within eighty-five yards of
him the animal dived, and my informant after wait-
ing for three quarters of an hour where he was,
returned on shore to watch for his reappearance,
which, though my informant remained in his un-
comfortable position for more than five hours and a
half on the bank, did not take place. Although this
man was not so fortunate as to get a shot at him,
he was near enough to have been enabled to furnish

136 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

me with a most satisfactory account of the animal's
appearance and dimensions. In form and colour
the Boobrie strongly resembles the Great Northern
Diver, with the exception of the white on the neck
and breast ; the wings of both, bearing about the
same proportion to the size of their bodies, appear
to have been given them by nature more for the
purpose of assisting them in swimming under water,
than flying. In size of body he is larger than
seventeen of the biggest eagles put together. His
neck is two feet eleven inches long, and twenty-
three inches in circumference, his bill is about
seventeen inches long, black in colour, measuring
round the root about eleven inches ; for the first
twelve inches the bill is straight, but after that
assumes the shape of an eagle's, and of pro-
portionate strength. His legs are remarkably short
for his size, black in colour, but tremendously
powerful, the feet are webbed till within five inches
of the toes, which then terminate in immense
claws of most destructive nature. The print of his
foot on the mud at the east end of the lake (as
accurately measured by an authority) covers the
space generally contained within the span of a
large wide-spreading pair of red deer's horns. The
sound he utters resembles that of a large bull in
his most angry humours, but much superior in
strength. The favourite food of the Boobrie is
the flesh of calves ; failing them he feeds upon
sheep or lambs, as suits him, or seizing his prey
he carries it off to the largest neighbouring muir
loch, swims out to the deepest part, where he
dives, carrying his victim along with him, and

THE BOOBRIE AS BIRD 137

there feeds, returning on shore at pleasure. He
is also particularly fond of otters, which he
swallows in great numbers, and with considerable
avidity.

"It is a notorious fact that about sixty years
ago a Boobrie frequented a loch named Loch
Leathan, anglice 'the Broad Loch,' in the West
of Argyllshire, and caused great consternation in
the district.

" The clergyman of this parish was a remarkable
man, not only for the assiduity with which he
followed his calling, but for his talents and accom-
plishments. Whenever it was known that he was
to preach, a large congregation was certain. On
one occasion the parson had agreed to preach for a
neighbouring clergyman who was absent on duty,
and all the neighbouring gentry made a point of
attending. As distances were great the heritors
ordered dinner. [Here story tells of their chance of
falling in with the Boobrie. . . . the minister and
his servant fell over one another in a burn. Each
thought the other was the Boobrie. Sandy, the
servant, always thought they had been glamoured
by the Boobrie !] "

(d) The Boobrie as Water-horse (Each-Uisge). —
" On the banks of Loch Freisa, a fresh-water loch on
the property of Lochadashenaig, in the island of
Mull, the tenant was ploughing some land that was
so hard and strong that he was compelled to use four
horses. Early one day one of the horses cast a
shoe, they were nine miles from a smithy, and the
nature of the ground prevented any possibility of
the horse ploughing without one. ' Here's the best

138 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

part of our day's work gone,' said the tenant to his
son, who was leading the foremost horses. ' I am
not sure,' replied the son. ' I see a horse feeding
beside the loch, we'll take a lend of him, as we don't
know who he belongs to.' The father approved
of the proposal. The son went down and fetched
up the horse, which appeared to have been quite
used to ploughing, drawing first up hill, then down,
perfectly steadily until they reached the end of the
furrow, close to the loch. On an attempt to turn
the horses this borrowed one became rather restive,
which brought the whip into use, though lightly ;
no sooner had the thong touched him than he
instantly assumed the form of a most enormous
Boobrie, and uttering a shout which appeared to
shake the earth, plunged into the loch, carrying with
him the three horses and plough.1 The tenant and
his son had both the sense to let go their respective
holds. The Boobrie swam out with his victims to
the middle of the loch, where he dived, carrying
them along with him to the bottom, where he
apparently took his pleasure of them. The tenant
and his son got a most awful fright (as well may be
imagined), but remained hid behind a large stone for
seven hours in the earnest hope of perhaps even
one of their horses coming ashore. But no."

(c) Boobrie as Tarbh-Uisge. — " In the two preced-
ing anecdotes we have described the Boobrie merely
as a rapacious and predatory animal, causing general
dismay from his frightful appearance and voracious
appetite, but the following anecdote seems to give
colour to the now generally received belief that this

1 In those days ploughs were almost always made of wood.

THE BOOBRIE AS WATER-BULL 139

form in its different shapes was the abode of a spirit,
condemned to such penance by way of expiation for
the violation of certain ordinances of the superior
spirits, and was in many instances friendly, if not
beneficent to mankind."

The following abstract will explain the subsequent
story :

[Scene in winter on west coast of Argyll, on west
bank of Loch nan Dobhran, where one Eachann
suddenly came upon a large black bull which was
lying down, apparently dying and groaning piteous ly :
Eachann feeds him. Eachann s sweetheai't Phemie
had a rejected suitor, Murdoch Mac P her son : Scene
changes to summer, at the shieling beside Loch nan
Dobhran7\

" Once or twice Phemie had been startled by the
momentary vision of a shadow on the lake, one
which made her shudder, for the fleeting outline
reminded her of the rejected suitor. . . . One even-
ing as she sat at some distance from the shieling and
thought of Eachann, the shadow again crossed her,
but this time when she looked around Murdoch
himself was there. Before she could scream he
threw his plaid over her head, bound down her
hands. . . . Help came to her in a most unexpected
form. The Tarbh Uisg came tearing along, and
rushing at Murdoch, seemed to crush him to the
earth before he had any time to make any resist-
ance. . . . The Tarbh Uisg approached Phemie,
and kneeled down, as if to invite her to mount upon
his back, which she did. He immediately sped
off, and with the quickness of thought she found
herself safely deposited at her mother's door. The

140 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Tarbh Uisg was gone in a moment, but a voice
was heard in the air calling out loudly :

Chaidh comhnadh rium le dgair caomh
S ri bigh rin?i mise baigh ;
Deigh tri cheud bliadhna do dhaorsa chruaidh
Thoir fuasgladh dhomh gun daif,

which may be thus translated :

I was assisted by a young man
And I aided a maid in distress;
Then after three hundred years of bondage
Relieve me quickly.

Since then the Tarbh Uisg has not been seen."

The above reveals the persistence in folk-belief of
the idea of transformation, the Boobrie being the
abode of a spirit, just as the Donn Cualnge had
human reason. Sometimes the tarbh boidhbhre
has been thought of as asexual, and the phrase has
been rendered ' the bull of lust/ Calves with any
peculiarities were once upon a time held to be
from this stock, and corresponded to the Manx idea
of the far- //ieiy, which Cregeens Dictionary defines
as "a false conception of a calf, said to be generated
between a cow and what is called a tarroo-ushtey"
In parts of Inverness-shire it has been defined to
me as ! a serpent-bull, further defined as a great
fly, or as a big striped brown gobhlachan or
'ear-wig,' as long as one's little finger, with a crave
for sucking horse-blood. It was thought to be
very rare, to appear only in great heat in August
and September, and to have lots of tentacles or

1 Tarbh a nathar-neimhe (sic) . i . cuileag 7nhor no gobhlachan m6r
riabhach donn j fad do liidaig ann *s e gle dhona air son bhith toirtfuil
a na h-eich.

THE BOOBRIE AS WATER-BULL 141

feelers (tha grainne spbgan air). In the same
district the water-horse was thought of as at times
like unto a man, similar to a carle in ribbons and
rags ; every one will not see it : to see it is an
omen of drowning.1

The water-horse (in t-ech usci) is spoken of in the
Life of St. Fdchin of Fore : "It came to them and
was harnessed to the chariot, and it was tamer
and gentler than any other horse."2 Cossar Ewart
has lately spoken of the old species of horse of
30,000 years ago, and may be the wild-horse of
Scotland is reflected in its folklore. Mr. D. M.
Rose drew attention to this in the Scotsman, and
as what he says of Sutherland holds further south, I
cannot but quote his words :

" In the folklore of the north, extending over
a wide area, from Caithness to Aberdeen, there
is much concerning horses that at first sight seems
fabulous. But a different complexion is put on
these tales when it is taken into consideration
that wild horses survived in the north until the
sixteenth century. Through the progress of time
folklore became invested with the supernatural.
For instance, in Sutherland there are many legends
about the wild horses of the interior, and from
these yarns it would appear that later genera-
tions (in the absence of the real wild horse)
entertained a belief that his Satanic Majesty must
have assumed the shape of a horse to beguile

1 Tha'n t-each uisge coltach ri duine ; 'na bhodach coltach ri creutair
is riobanan no luideagan air ; chan fhaic a h-uile neach e agus is e
comharradh romh bhathadh a th'ann.

2 Rev. Cel. 12, 347.

142 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

wayfarers. A queer thing is that in folklore all
these wild horses were lovely yellow coloured
animals with bristling manes and long flowing tails.
If yellow was the prevailing colour of the wild
animal, it is somewhat singular that the yellow
dun type of horse is somewhat rare in the north.

" Let me give the story of the golden horse of
Loch Lundie. Two men from Culmailie went one
Sunday to fish on Loch Lundie, and they saw,
pasturing in a meadow, one of the most lovely
golden coloured ponies they had ever seen. One of
the men determined to seize the animal and bring it
home. His companion, in a state of great alarm
tried to dissuade him, assuring him that the animal
was none other than the devil in disguise. The
man, nothing daunted, began to stalk the pony,
declaring that if he could get a chance he would
mount on the beast, even if it were the Evil One.
At length he managed to get within reach, and
making a bound he seized the bristling mane, and
leaped on the animal's back. In an instant the
pony gave one or two snorts that shook the hills,
fire flashed from its eyes and nostrils, and tossing
its tail into the air, it galloped away with the man to
the hills, and he was never again seen by mortal
being.

11 According to another version, the yellow horse
of Loch Lundie was last seen in a meadow near
Brora by two boys who broke the Sabbath. They
tried to mount the animal, and one of them suc-
ceeded in doing so. The other boy, getting alarmed,
tried to withdraw, but found to his horror that his
finger had stuck in the animal's side. With great

THE WATER-HORSE 143

presence of mind, he immediately pulled out his
knife and cut off his finger. The pony immediately
gave an appallingly shrill neigh and galloped madly
away with his rider, who was never seen again.

■ Of course, in folklore the pony was undoubtedly
regarded as Auld Nick, but the truth is that wild
horses actually existed in the Sutherland hills until
after 1545. This wild herd was claimed by the
Bishops of Moray, but Sutherland of Duffus suc-
ceeded in making good his right to them. They
are described as the herd of ' wild meris, staigs, and
folis,' and they could hardly have been of the
domesticated species, though possibly later on they
were captured and tamed, or died away. In
Aberdeenshire the same folklore exists regarding
wild horses. There is a story told about a son of
Rose of Tullisnaught, who was lost in the neigh-
bouring Forest of Birse. When he and his servant
went out hunting one day he suddenly came upon a
beautiful yellow pony in a glade of the forest. The
servant tried to persuade him that the pony was
merely the devil in disguise, but Rose determined to
capture and mount the animal. He managed to do
this, but in a twinkling horse and rider disappeared
and were never seen again. Now, the recently
issued Records of the Sheriffdom of Aberdeen
(vol. i. pp. 106-7), by the New Spalding Club,
clearly establishes the existence of a herd of wild
horses in the Forest of Birse in 1507. From the
references they do not appear to have been of the
domesticated species, though they were being dis-
persed and apparently broken in."

As regards the Boobrie as bird, this is the bird

144 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Forbes gives as tut aire, ' the common bittern/
The upper parts of its body and wings are of a rich
brown buff, with cross bars and shaft lines which
give it colour-protection among the reeds of the
marsh it frequents. The bittern boom, at the
breeding season, is a strangely weird sound. Its
early arrival was a good omen :

You may knaw there's na mair winter te cum
When the Bull o' Prestwick beats his drum.

(Northumberland Loi-e.)

By Tweedside the bird was called the Miredrum ;
it is known as Botaurus stellaris, starred or
speckled bird which bellows like an ox-bull. The
French call it tutor, or else tceuf du marais, ' ox of
the swamp,' or taureau d'etang, 'bull of the pond.'
Other English names are tutter-tumps, tog-tull.
It is its weird hollow cry at evening or at night
that has led to its being regarded as an omen of
disaster or death. Few retreats are left for it,
comparatively, and its irregular visits have caused a
good deal of confused belief regarding it. Burns
calls it the tluiter, e.g.

The howlet cried from the castle wa',
The bluiter from the bogie.

Scott's description is probably the best in poetry :
it suggests the solitary habits and the aloofness of

the bird :

Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow ;

And the bittern sound his drum
Booming from the sedgy shallow,

Ruder sounds shall none be near,

Guards nor warders challenge here.

THE BITTERN 145

The sound is described as hollow ; a boominsr
sound, as that of a drum ; a sort of bellow, but not
so loud as that of a cow or bull, but suggestive of
that sound. Its note during the breeding season
is variously described as booming, bumping, bellow-
ing, ' bumbling in the mire/ and Sir Thomas
Browne refers to the belief that "a bitter maketh
that mugient noyse, or as we term it bumping, by
putting its bill into a reed." The Germans call it
moosockse, mooskuhe. It is questionable whether
the Latin botaurus has not been suggested by some
survival of a Celtic *bo-tarvos, issuing in Old
English botor, perhaps also in the Gaelic bo'itkre,
tarbh eztkre, if we put O'Davoren's bo-oibre aside.
A bird called a bull, which imitates the lowing of
oxen is spoken of by Pliny: "est quae bourn
mugitus imitetur in Arelatensi agro taurus appellata '
{Hist. A7 at. x. 42). Its note has typified desolate-
ness and gloom from of old : cf. Isaiah xiv. 23,
xxxiv. 11; Zephaniah ii. 14. Though changed in
the Revised Version to porcupine (hedge-hog),
Principal G. A. Smith, for instance, renders the
last passage: "Yea, pelican and bittern shall roost
on the capitals," * and points out that the other
animals mentioned here are birds, and that it is
birds which would naturally roost on capitals.1 By
the Tigris the bittern abounds, as in the marshes
of Syria. " No traveller," says Canon Tristram,
11 who has heard the weird booming of the bittern
in the stillness of the night, while encamped near
some ruined site, can ever forget it, or mistake any
other sound for it. The bird belongs to the heron

1 Book of The Twelve Prophets, vol. ii. 65.

146 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

tribe, but is utterly different in its habits ; always
solitary, standing still and motionless through the
day, with its beak upturned, looking like a tuft of
weathered leaves, and only feeding at night." The
sound is produced by the bird expelling the air from
its throat while it stands with neck outstretched and
holding its bill vertically upwards, — so Mr. J. E.
Harting, who has observed the bird in the act. It
is uncommon now in Scotland. One has been
found at Taprain Law, East Lothian, on January
21, 1908. From a description given me over
twenty years ago it was heard about Loch Bruiach,
Inverness-shire, several years previously, and was
known as the tarbh boidhre (bdeithre, bo-oibhre).
I had made most of my investigation of the Boobrie
over six years ago when, following on an article on
the 'Bull o' the Bog,' by Mr. J. Logie Robertson
(Scotsman, March 1, 19 10; cf. also that of Feb. 5,
1 9 10, as to its rarity), there appeared this note,
which I beg to insert as quite confirmatory of my
suggestion :

" The Legend of the Water Bull. — When reading
'J. L. R.'s ' interesting notes in The Scotsman of
March 1st on the 'Bull o' the Bog,' it occurred to
me that possibly in that bird of nocturnal habits we
might find a natural explanation of the water bull
(sometimes called the water horse) of Celtic legend.
The main facts, viz., that the bittern haunts damp
and reedy quarters such as are quite common round
so many of our Highland lakes, that its booming
notes are not unlike the guttural bellowing of a bull,
and more particularly that its voice is usually heard
after night-fall, all seem to suggest that it may have

WATER BULL 147

been the natural source of the various mythological
tales in which the water bull figures. Some twenty-
years ago I came across an old Highlander in the
north-west of Argyllshire who thoroughly believed
in the existence of the water bull (the Tarbh-uisge).
He told me a long tale about it. It dwelt in a loch
not far from his dwelling. It only appeared at
night. He had heard its roaring more than once.
It was the reputed sire of one of the calves in the
next farm, and that particular calf had, on being
sent out with the others, gone straight to the loch,
and plunged into its waters, and disappeared — a
sure proof of its paternity. At the time, knowing
that old Donald's hut was on the edge of a deer
forest, I came to the conclusion that he had
attached a mythical significance to the sound of
the stag's roaring in the rutting season — a weird
melancholy sound when heard towards the gloam-
ing, full of pathos, and most appealing to
the imagination. Now, however, after reading
'J. L. R.V article on the bittern and its ways,
I wonder if that nocturnal bird — presuming it
frequented the Highlands of old — may not be
responsible for some at least of the myths asso-
ciated with the water bull. — B. B."

I may add that the long claw of a bittern's hind
toe was once used as an amulet. Its boom is
reserved for the pairing or breeding season, and less
than a century ago it caused strange misgivings
and mingled feelings to whole communities.

References to the divine bull of the Celts can
be carried very far back. In the Banquet of
the Sophists by Athenaeus, Ulpien, one of the

148 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

interlocutors, speaking of the tiger, cites a verse
from one of the lost comedies of Philemon, who,
at the age of 99, died in 262 B.C.:

axnrep ^cXevKOs Sevp' eTre/xt/'e tt)v riypiv
rjv Loofxev rjfieis tw ZeAevKip 7raAii> eoet
rjfxas ti 7rap} 17/xtov avTnrkp.\pai 0-qpiov
rpvyepavov' ov yap ylyverai tout' olvtoui.

Athenaeus, xiii. 57, p. 590 a.

I.e. as Seleucus has brought hither the tiger which
we have seen, we ought to send him back some
animal in exchange, a trugeranos ; there are none
there. This, as Monsieur J. Vendryes has pointed
out, is simply the Gaulish Trigaranos, an epithet of
the divine Tarvos, a trots grues, which figures on
the altar of Notre Dame at Paris and on the bas-
relief of Treves {Revue Celtique, 28, 124). The
king referred to is Seleucus Nicator, one of the
successors of Alexander the Great ; having visited
the confines of India he met the famous prince,
Chandragupta, and brought back, in addition to
some five hundred elephants, some exotic animals
such as tigers, to which he fell a prey in the city of
Athens. The Gauls about this time were invading
Macedonia and Thrace ; they were checked at
Delphi in 279. The fear of the Gauls, — 6 a-wb
TaXarcov (pofios, — was become proverbial ; a decree
of the year 278 B.C., discovered in the ruins of the
Asklepeion at Cos, expresses the joy caused in the
island by the tidings of the Gaulish defeat, and
prescribes a festival in honour of Apollo, of Zeus
Soter and of Nike in celebration of the event.

The Celts had made three different expeditions
in the Orient, and in the age of Alexander some of

THE DIVINE BULL 149

them were in contact with Greek civilisation ; the
Greeks recovered some booty from their enemy, and
it would have been an easy matter probably to have
seen in the Celtic camp some such symbolic repre-
sentations as are to be met with on the altar of
Notre Dame at Paris, or on the bas-relief of Treves,
— figured emblems of the Celtic Tarvos Trigaranos.
A creature so bizarre was bound to excite curiosity
among a people who noted that a Gaulish word for
horse was marca (cf. Gaelic mar each, ' rider '), and
whose Pausanias describes the rpiniapKia-la or group
of three cavaliers fighting in unison.

That reverence was paid to the bull among the
Celts is indicated by the frequency of river-names
signifying * bull ' ; for instance, the river Tarf,
whence Abertarff, Gaelic Obair-thairbh, in Strath-
errick, Inverness-shire ; while Tarf is a stream name
in the shires of Perth, Forfar, Kirkcudbright, Wigton.
These Tarf names go back to Pictish times. Rivers
of old were held in holy reverence : witness names
like Boyne, *bo-vinda, ' white-cow,' appearing in
legend as a personal female name ; Dee ; Aberdeen,
G. Obair-dhedon, 'the mouth or inver of the Devona,'
a goddess-name ; Affric, a river name, older Aith-
bhrecc, a female name Affrica, and suitable as a
nymph name, which is also the case with Ness, from
Pictish ; l Lochy, the ' nigra dea,' or black goddess
of Adamnan's Life of Columba. The early human
attitude may be inferred from what is told regarding

1The name is the same as in the goddess name Ness, mother of
Conchobar ; proto-Celtic *nesta, s/ned, wet, water ; German, netzen,
to wet ; nass, wet ; Sanskrit, nadi, river ; cf. the river Neda in
Greece, Nestos in Thrace. MacBain in Trans. Gael. Soc, Inverness,
25, p. 62.

150 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

the Kaffirs asking permission of a river ere profaning
it by crossing it. The Roman bridge-builder or
pontifex was the intermediary between the divinity
and man, hence our pontiff ; cf. Virgil's pontem in-
dignatus A raxes. The old Celt Viridomaros thought
himself descended from the Rhine.

One meets also with the name Rhenogenos, ' born
of the Rhine ' god. Certain of the Gaulish inhabi-
tants plunged their newly-born infants into its waters ;
if they survived the ordeal it was a token of their
being protected by the common ancestor. Gaulish
inscriptions likewise testify that rivers were the
objects of a cult : e.g. de>c seqva/e (the Seine),
de/e icauni (the Yonne).1 In Scotland, too, the river
names are mostly pre-Christian and testify to their
having been looked on with more than sacred awe.
Almost all of them have legends such as Hugh
Miller tells of the water-wraith of the Conon River
in his Schools and Schoolmasters, and Dr. Walter
Gregor, of the water-spirit of Donside. Scott in
his Journal (23rd Nov., 1827) tells of an attempt
to bait the water-cow, while Mr. Dixon in his
Gairloch (p. 162) tells a very similar story. A
plaid has several times been made an offering to
the water-spirit of the Dee, Aberdeenshire, which
levied a heavy toll on human life, if we believe
the rhyme :

Blood thirsty Dee
Each year needs three,
But bonny Don
She needs non.

1 Esquisse de la Religion des Gaulois, par H. Gaidoz, Paris, 1879,
p. 12. Even Cicero reasons: "ergo et flumines et fontes sunt dii '"'
{De Nat. Deorum, iii. 20).

WATER-WRAITH AND NYMPHS 151

There are traces of a custom of throwing salt
over the water and the nets to propitiate the Fairies
of the Tweed. In Scott's Pirate we find the belief
that whoever rescues a drowning man incurs the
monster's wrath by cheating him of his victim :
perhaps from this idea we may infer the belief,
prevalent in the Highlands, in the unluck sure to
come to the family of the man who is the first to
find a victim of drowning : the unluck follows from
robbing the spirit of the waters of its victim. The
legends of water- horses in Loch Ness and in the
Beauly River, indeed in all considerable streams,
point to the spirit of the raging flood as an external
soul in the waters.1 Indeed, other river names,
such as Ness, Don, Nevis, Annan, go back to early
Celtic nomenclature, which reveals them to be names
of nymphs, especially divine water-nymphs.

One of the altars discovered at Paris in 17 10,
under the apsis of the Church of Notre Dame, has
four interesting carvings, which represent :

1. Jupiter, in standing posture, holding a sceptre
in his left hand, which is raised, the left side being
covered with a tunic, which leaves the right shoulder
exposed. To the right of the god, on the ground, is
placed an eagle. The frame-work above the figure
bears the inscription iovis.

2. Vulcan, in upright posture, clothed in working
tunic, leaving the right side exposed, as also the
lower left arm. The left hand holds or grips a
tongs. The figure is inscribed volcanus.

3. A woodcutter, clad in a tunic similar to

1 Cf. Mackenzie in Proceed, of Society of Scottish Antiquaries,
1895-96, pp. 69-76, on 'Traces of River Worship in Scottish Folk- Lore.'

i52 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Vulcan's, is shown as holding in his right hand,
which is raised, an axe with which he is to give a
blow to some stems on the gnarled trunk, while in
his left hand he holds one of the branches. Inscribed
above is esvs.

4. A bull carrying on his back a dorsal covering
above which is a tree, the foliage of which is the
same as that on the tree in figure 3 — in fact, the
foliage of the tree seems to be portrayed here as in
continuation of the preceding scene. On the bull's
head is placed a crane, while two other cranes are
portrayed back to back on the animal's croup.
Above is the inscription tarvostrigaranvs.

In December, 1895, there was discovered on the
left bank of the Moselle, above Treves, on the road
leading to Luxembourg and to Metz, another in-
teresting sculpture, the first publication of which
is due to Lehner in the Korrespondenzblatt der
Westdeutschen Zeitschrift for 1896. It appeared
next in the issue for 1897 of the Bonner J ahrbiic her,
and was carefully discussed by the celebrated savant,
M. Salomon Reinach, in the Revue Celtique for that
year. Though in very bad preservation, the monu-
ment seems to have been an altar-piece. One face
of this sculpture portrays the Mercury and Rosmerta
of the Gauls, according to Reinach. Beneath it is
inscribed :

NDVS MEDIOM-
MERCVRIO VVS

which Lehner has restored thus : Indus Medio-
matricus Mercurio votum libens meritoQ) solvit.
The face to the right is well preserved and shows,

THE BULL ON THE PARIS ALTAR 153

but on a much smaller scale than that on the prin-
cipal face, a figure of a man, probably beardless,
clothed in a short tunic ; he holds in his hands the
handle of a long implement which he is about to
drive into a tree. This tree, the denticulated leaves
of which call to mind the foliage on the altar found
at Paris, supports a bull's head on the left ; and three
great birds,1 with long beak, are on the right thereof.
We are in the presence of a representation of the
same scene as is depicted on the altar of Notre
Dame — it shows us the woodcutter, the tree, the
bull, and the three cranes — with the sole difference
that Esus and the Tarvos Trigaranos are depicted on
one piece instead of on two, as in the other case.
This tree, the foliage of which recalls that of the
willow, is an essential element in the representation.
The more one considers the bas-relief of Treves, the
more readily does one agree with Monsieur Reinach's
conclusion that there exists a relation between the
tree and the woodman, and the bull with the three
cranes ; that instead of four isolated figures, Vulcan,
Jupiter, Esus, and Tarvos Trigaranos, of the altar
at Paris, there are only three figures symbolised, —
Esus and Tarvos Trigaranos being elements of one
scene though shown in juxtaposition.

1This signifies the presence of divinity or of inspiration in the
votary. In the early cult of sacred trees and pillars, birds of various
kinds play an important part : the spirit descends on the tree or stone
in the form of a bird. In Greece the dove is connected with a
sepulchral cult. "It is, in fact, a favourite shape in which the spirit of
the departed haunts his last resting-place, and in accordance with this
idea we see the heathen Lombards ornamenting their grave-posts
with the effigy of a dove." It is the dove that bears the nectar to
Zeus (Ody. xii. 62, 63) ; v. Harrison's The Dove Cult of Primitive
Greece, p. 7.

154 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Reinach points out that the bull often personifies
the forces of the sun and of the waters, and thinks
that the god-bull prepared for sacrifice (Notre Dame)
and shown as slaughtered at Treves, may be the
Gaulish Belenos, the Celtic Apollo- Helios (Cultes,
iii. 177).

The bull on the Treves bas-relief is seemingly
but an attribute in the scene of which the tree is the
central and basic symbol. The bull represents some
divinity conceived as inhabiting a tree : we have, in
a word, a primitive representation of the tree-soul
animating a tree which is about to be felled by some
semi-divine hero known in legend surviving among,
though not necessarily original to, the Celts. Or if
among a Celtic people, it may have formed part of
legendary belief among the forerunners of the
Gauls, to wit, the Ligurians, whose speech has been
called Celtican by Rh^s,1 who has essayed recently
to show it as most closely allied to Gadhelic. The
Highland survival of the Boobrie has much that
may be traced to a common origin with the root
idea symbolised in bas-relief at Paris and at Treves,
and I see no reason why one might not expect to
find among Gadhelic survivals some close parallels to
the idea at the root of the tree-cutter portrayed on
these reliefs. Hirschfield has agreed that certain
Pyrenean gods of a non- Iberian type are to be
attributed to the Ligurian predecessors of the Celts,
or, as I should prefer to say, of the Gauls : he
instances the oak-god {Fagtcs deus, the translation

14 Celtic Inscriptions of France and Italy/ from Proceedings of the
British Academy, reviewed by me in The Scottish Historical Review,
July, 1908.

THE BULL OF TREVES 155

of the name of a local god), the gods Sexarbor,
Sexarbores, and the nameless god on some coni-
ferous tree represented on an altar found at
Toulouse.1 Esus, on the Paris altar, may have
been the local name in that district, and not at all
Pan-Celtic. D'Arbois has tried to make out a close
parallel for Cuchulainn. The primary creation of
the root ideas in this myth may be due to precursors
of the Celts alike in Gaul and Ireland, but they
point to early tree-worship, and to survivals of
dendrolatry among the Celts. May we not infer
with Reinach the idea of a cosmic tree and of a
cosmic bull ? Maximus of Tyre relates that the
Celts worshipped Zeus under the image of an oak —
Spus ayaX/ua A/o? — and Claudian in his praise of
Stilicho says of Celtdom : robora Numinis instar
barbarici. M. Reinach recalls the ideas associated
with the Scandinavian Yggdrasil or world-ash, in
the branches of which, as it covered the universe,
sat an eagle cognisant of all things, while a serpent
gnawed at the root. The parallel to the semi-divine
wood-cutter is met with in the Kalevala and in the
legends of Esthonia, in which a dwarf becomes
transformed into a giant and fells the tree that
obscured the light of sun and moon, shaking at its
fall the whole heavens and earth. The bull appears
in Gaulish art of the Hallstatt and La Tene periods,
and symbolises a religious idea at the stage when
religious expression is at one with the myth. The
legend, which associates a semi-divine hero with the
cutting down of the tree which supports a bull with
three cranes, must be of great antiquity among the

lv. Sitzungsberichte of Berlin Academy, 16th April, 1896.

156 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Celts, and in some way emblemises, how rudely
soever, the presence which pervades all thought and
things. Certain of the Greeks expressed this when
they conceived Dionysos, not only as tutelary
divinity of the tree, but as in the tree, k'vSevSpos,

irapa 'Po^/oi? Zev? kcu Alovvcto<} ev Boicoria — a gloss of

Hesychius. As to a connection between death or
transformation and eating the flesh of cranes, com-
pare the obscure formula in West Highland Tales
(i. 240) ; to cause the death of one who has lived
too long it suffices to call thrice through the key-
hole : " Wish you to go or wish you to stay, or wish
you to eat the flesh of cranes ?"

Nor need the fact of the divine bull being pro-
minent in Celtic belief surprise us. Elsewhere the
bull, as the source of all wealth among a people of
shepherds and hunters, became the object of religious
veneration. " In the eyes of such a people the
capture of a wild bull was an achievement so highly
fraught with honour as to be apparently no deroga-
tion even for a god." Thus the bull-slaying Mithra,
dragged along on the horns of the infuriated animal,
was transformed until his painful journey became
the symbol of human sufferings. " But the bull, it
would appear, succeeded in making its escape from
its prison, and roamed again at large over the moun-
tain pastures." The sun then sent the raven, his
messenger, to carry to his ally the command to slay
the fugitive. Mithra received this cruel mission
much against his will, but submitting to the decree
of heaven he pursued the truant beast with his agile
dog, succeeded in overtaking it just at the moment
when it was taking refuge in the cave which it had

THE BULL OF CUALNGE 157

quitted, and seizing it by the nostrils with one hand,
with the other he plunged deep into its flank his
' hunting knife.'1 In the Mithraic religion, as Justin
tells us, there was a 4 baptism for the remission of
sins': the bull being the recognised emblem of life,
its blood constituted the recognised laver of re-
generation. In the rite known as Blood- Baptism
or Taurobolia, the person to be initiated, being
stripped of all clothing, went into a pit covered
with planks pierced full of holes, whereupon the hot
blood of a newly-slaughtered bull was allowed down
through the apertures, as in a shower bath, upon the
person to be regenerated. To judge from the state-
ment of Lampridius that the priest-emperor Helio-
gabalus submitted to it, the rite must have been an
important one, and a pit for the purpose has been
discovered within the precints of the temple at
Eleusis in Greece.

The Celtic personal name, Donno-taurus, ' noble-
bull ' (lord-bull), mentioned by Caesar, may contain
a word cognate with Irish down, explained in
O'Davoren's Glossary by ' noble, judge, king/ and
may come, according to Stokes, from *domno-s, and
be cognate with L. dominus, 'lord, master.'2 This
is most probably the same word that meets us in
Donn, the name of the divine bull located in the
Irish epic at Cualnge (Cooley). In course of time
it easily got confused with an entirely different word,
donn, 'dun.' In referring to this latter, de Jubain-
ville seems to have forgotten the former word.3

1 Cumont, The Mysteries of Milhra, Eng. trans., Chicago, 1903,
pp. 135-6.

*Archivfiir Celtische Phil. ii. B. p. 310. 3 R.C. 27, 324".

158 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

To the Donn Cualnge one perhaps might compare
the Minotaure, which also had a divine origin, its
father having been a bull given by Poseidon to
Minos, and its mother Pasiphae, daughter of the
sun. During the Athenian war Minos exacted as a
condition of peace that each year there should be
sent to Crete seven youths and seven young maidens
to be devoured by the Minotaure. The Minotaure
was killed by Theseus, as we learn from Pherecydes.
It has been suggested1 that the legend of Pasiphae
and the Minotaure contains a reminiscence of a
marriage ceremony in which the King and Queen
of Cnossos figured in the disguise of a bull and cow
respectively. Marrying a queen to a bull-god was
portrayed by marrying her to a man disguised as a
bull. The vine-god Dionysos was annually married
to a queen at a building on the N.E. slope of the
Acropolis at Athens, named the Cattle-Stall, whence
Miss Harrison2 conjectured that Dionysos may
have been represented as a bull at the marriage,
"In that case the part of the bridegroom might be
played by a man wearing a bull's head, just as in
Egypt in similar rites the sacred animals were
represented by men and women wearing the masks
of cows, hawks, crocodiles, and so forth."3

I recall the wake orgy in Ireland mentioned by
Lady Wilde, in which a bull is married to a cow ;
compare Callitinn ci Bhuilg ceremonies in the
Highlands, wherein a hide figures. Add for Britain
perhaps the Hobby Horse at Pads tow.

1 A. B. Cook in Classical Review, xvii. (1903), pp. 410, 412.
^•Prolegomena to Greek Religion, p. 537.
3Frazer, On the Kingship, 174-5.

THE BULL OF CUALNGE 159

Minos is suspected of having been murdered every
nine years ;. his death was a secret. His going into
the Labyrinth is equivalent to going into the Bull
god's cave.1 On Gadhelic ground, when the Donn or
Brown Bull of Cualnge triumphed over its rival the
Find Bennach, it soon after died itself of its wounds,
but paralleling the cruelty of the Minotaure it killed
one hundred infants, or two-thirds of the one
hundred and fifty children that came in groups of
fifty to enjoy themselves after mid-day on its great
and glossy back.2

M. D'Arbois de Jubainville regards the Tarvos
Trigaronos, now in the museum at Cluny, as identi-
cal with the Donn Cualnge, and further, the person-
age called Esus, who is about to apply his axe to
the tree, appears to him identical with the hero
Cuchulainn, who is portrayed as felling trees to arrest
the march of the forces of Queen Medb :3 " At one
blow Cuchulainn cut the chief stem of an oak, root
and branch/'

Again, Cuchulainn's divine father was Lug of
the Long Hand, already referred to, and well
remembered in Celtic myth. The name appears
often in Gaul, for instance in the place-name
Lugudunum, now Lyons, also in Leyden. His
cult was widely diffused, to judge from the name
being met with in the plural Lugoues, Litgouibus,
on inscriptions, one from Switzerland, another from
Spain. He was the Gaulish Mercury in Caesars

lv. Gilbert Murray, The Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 127"; and cf.
The Pilgrimage to Loch Derg.

2 Tdin bo Cualnge, ed. Windisch, pp. 190-1, 11. 1532- 1536.

3 lb. p. 82, etc. ; also p. 68 ; Hull's Cuch. Saga, p. 128, sec. 8.

i6o THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

time who speaks of him as the inventor of all the
arts. The Irish Lug, according to the account in
the ' Second Battle of Moytura,' 1 was skilful as poet,
warrior, physician, sorcerer, harpist, poet, and to
him is given the epithet of ' master of all the arts.'
Balor of the evil eye received his death at the hand
of Lug, who thereupon is accorded the sovereignty
of the Tuatha de Danann on the death of Nuada
their king.2 In the effort at filling up pre-Christian
history, the Annalists of course make him figure as
king in Ireland. I agree with M. D'Arbois in
regarding Lug, in his continental aspects, as having
been chief among the gods of Gaul, the god whom
Caesar identified with Mercury : Deum maxime
Mercurium colunt.2. The Mercury of the menhir of
Kervadel, now preserved at Kernuz, D'Arbois
identifies with Lug, while he recalls the exploit of
Cuchulainn's youth when, on having slain the hound
of Culann the Smith, he offered reparation by taking
guard himself, on which account his name was
changed from the Setanta (older form #Setantios ?) of
his boyhood to Cu-chulainn, Hound of Culann. The
name Setanta is not Gadhelic : it existed probably
among the Picts of Ulidia, and was an ethnic name
in Britain, — the Setantii were a tribe near the River
Mersey in Ptolemy's day. Among the near Gaulish
kinsmen of the British tribes the god may have
been simply designated by a personal epithet or
title such as Esus, ' master, lord,' the name of the god
on the altar-piece of Notre Dame now in the Museum
of Cluny. Cuchulainn alone was exempted from

1Transl. by Stokes, Rev. Cell. 12.

2 Book of Leinster, p. 9, col. I, 11. 5-7. 3 De Bello Galileo, vi. 17.

THE GOD LUG 161

the malady which befell the Ultonian heroes during
the war of the Tain, but at last there came a moment
when, weary and fatigued with wounds, he felt unable
to endure any longer. His hero's call was answered
by the appearance of a wondrous warrior whom the
Book of the Dun depicts as saying : "I come to
succour thee, I am thy father come from the abode
of the gods, I am Lug the son of Ethniu." If we
examine the menhir of Kervadel in the light of
comparative Celtic myth, it is most probable that it
depicts the Gaulish Mercury and his avatar or son,
in other words Lug (Lugos) and Esus. M. D'Arbois
would go even further, and suggests that the myth
of Cuchulainn and the story now worked up into the
Tain may have been brought from Britain by the
Druids, who were there taught the existing lore at a
time when as yet the story had not been entirely
localised in Eriu. But I cannot think that we are
justified in assuming an entire absence of at least
parallel tales in Gaul itself. The P-group of similar
speaking tribes would have much in common, in-
cluding what they may have imbibed from their
predecessors of the Q-group, the Gadhelic Celts.
For we must pre-suppose a time when both groups
were not as yet, in their continental home, foreign
to one another.

(g) The Water-horse (cf. the Boobrie as water-
horse in a preceding section). — After the bull one
thinks next of the water-horse, which is not, at
least in all its phases, to be classified under the
theriomorphic-soul. For in part it goes back on
nature-myth, and is perhaps a personification of the
destroying waters. A portion of this phase belongs

162 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

to the Celtic Dragon-Myth, which is a water-myth
in so far as some aspects of the monster met with is
concerned. It would be difficult to say what lochs
in the Highlands were formerly not associated with
the water-horse. A linne na badhbk is met with
in many places. The Black Glen river in Morvern
was once the resort of a water-horse. A recent
writer says :

" In Arisaig there is a loch, which, according
to tradition, there lived at one time a sea-horse.
Boswell, in his Journal of Johnson's Tour to
the Hebrides, informs us that an old man told
the following fabulous story of one of the lochs of
Raasay :

" There was once a wild beast in it, a sea-horse, which came and
devoured a man's daughter, upon which the man lighted a great
fire and had a sow roasted in it, the smell of which attracted
the monster. In the fire was put a spit. The man lay concealed
behind a low wall of loose stones. The monster came, and
the man with the red hot spit destroyed it.

" It is reported that a horse used to frequent the
road near Loch Ness, till a stout, brave Highlander,
meeting the monster one night, drew his sword
in the name of the Trinity, and finished the
supposed kelpie forever. Hugh Miller relates some
very weird stories about the uncanny doings of a
sea-horse or water- wraith that frequented the waters
of the River Conon, Ross-shire. The Black Glen
kelpie very early one morning was seen near the
source of the river, making very unusual sounds.
After a little while it left the waters of the river
altogether; and at last, with fearful bellowings, it
ran in the direction of Loch Uisge and Kingair-

THE WATER-HORSE 163

loch, and has neither been seen nor heard of any
more to this day.

" This glen also used to be much frequented by
wild boars and wolves. Owing to its evil reputa-
tion in this respect, people were afraid to pass
through the glen."

For the water-bull in the Isle of Man, see Moore's
Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man (p. 59). And for
Scotland, the Rev. J. G. Campbell's Superstitions.

In many districts we are told of " the lurking place
of the water-horse, which, under the form of a hand-
some youth, won and kept a maiden's heart until, by
chance, she found him asleep on the hillock where
they were wont to meet, and on bending over him
noticed a bunch of rushes in his hair. Then she
knew with what she had to deal, and fled in terror
to her father's house, reaching it just in time to
bar the door in the kelpie's face, whose voice she
heard crying :

Ann an la 's bliadhna,

Mo bhean 6g, thig mi dh' iarraidh.

In a day and a year,

I'll come seeking my dear.

So she was warned never to go near the hillock
again ; her parents found her a more eligible suitor ;
and all went well till her wedding day, when on
leaving the church after the ceremony was over,
a big black horse came suddenly upon them, seized
the bridle and galloped off with her. Since that
time no one has ever seen the horse or its burden,
unless, indeed, at the fall of night, some passer-by
catches a glimpse of a white face rising out of
the water, and hears a low sweet voice croon the

164 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

love song she was singing when first she saw her
kelpie lover."

I give two accounts which I have from the late
Rev. Allan Macdonald of Eriskay. They indicate
how universal this folk-belief was in the Highlands :

" Water-horse. — There was a young woman in
Barra who met a handsome looking man on the
hill. They chatted together, and at last he laid
his head on her lap. She noticed when he slept
that his hair was mixed with ' rafagach an locha,' a
weed that grows in lakes, and she became suspicious
that her friend was the water-horse in disguise. She
cut off the part of her clothes on which his head
rested, and slipped away without wakening him. A
considerable time after, on a Sunday after Mass, a
number of people were sitting on the hill and she
along with them. She noticed the stranger whom
she had met on the hill approaching, and she got up
to go home so as to avoid him. He made up to
her, notwithstanding, and caught her, and hurried
off and plunged with her into the lake, and not
a trace of her was ever found but a little bit of
one of her lungs on the shore of the lake. — Anne
M'lntyre."

" In the island of Mingulay a young woman had
a similar adventure, only in her case the stranger
appeared often to her, and they became at last so
fond of each other that they agreed to marry at
the end of a year and a day, and till then the
stranger was not to be seen by her. The girl went
home, and as the year was drawing to an end, she
was observed to be fast sinking in health and
losing her good colour, yet she would not say

THE WATER-HORSE 165

what it was that made her fall away so. Her father
at last extorted an unwilling confession of the truth
from her, and word was given to the islanders as
to what was causing the girl such trouble. She was
very beautiful and a great favourite, and when the
people heard what was to happen to her, they made
up their minds that they would allow no harm befall
her. When the day came all the men of the place
were armed with clubs, and the young woman was
put sitting on the wall of the house, — the young men
forming a guard round the house. All were in a
state of expectancy when the stranger was seen
appearing above the great cliff of Mingulay and
coming down swiftly towards the village. One of the
islanders stepped forward to meet the stranger and
asked him his errand. ' Such as it is/ said the
stranger, * you are not the man to stand in my way,
strong though you be, and you may as well not
detain me.' He went forward and reached the guard
round the house, and, in the twinkling of an eye,
seized the young woman by the hand, and, before
the guard had made up their minds to pursue him
and rescue the girl, he had so far retraced his
way with his prize. The islanders started in pursuit,
but in vain. They saw him and the woman dis-
appear at a certain well, and when they reached
this the well was full of blood and of shreds of
her garments. The well is still called ' Tobar
na Fala' = the well of blood. — Calum Dhomhnuill,

1895-"

(A) The Soul in Serpent-form. — I will illustrate by
a story : A man and wife in Ardnamurchan went
out to the hill for heather. When tired pulling it

166 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

the wife lay down and slept. The husband sat
down, and when his eyes were about to close, on
looking towards his wife he saw a serpent disappear-
ing down her mouth. He wakened her and they
went home, but he did not tell her what he had
seen. On getting home he went to the doctor, who
advised him to feed his wife well and to give her
plenty flesh meat, so that the serpent, getting
sufficient food in this way, might not begin to gnaw
herself. The woman was surprised at the change
in her fare, and she ate well. In due course she
was delivered of a child, and round the child's neck
was coiled the serpent.

The true members of the Clan Iver, says Principal
Maclver-Campbell in his Memoir of Clan Iver, were
supposed to be invulnerable to serpents : he quotes
a rhyme supposed to have been uttered by a serpent
or adder :

Mhionnaich mise do Chlann Imheair
S mhionnaich Clann Imheair dhomh,
Nach beanainn-se do Chlann Imheair
'S nach beanadh Clann Imheair dhomh,

i.e. ' I have sworn to Clan Iver and Clan Iver
have sworn to me, that I would not injure Clan
Iver and that Clan Iver would not injure me/ As
another explanation, Principal Maclver-Campbell
thought the lines commemorated an alliance between
Clan Iver and some race symbolised by the serpent
with "every probability that the alliance referred to
is that which is known to have existed between the
Maclvers in Perthshire and the Clan Donnachaidh
or Robertsons, one of whose cognisances was the
serpent which still appears as one of the supporters

SERPENT-FORM 167

in the arms of their chief, Robertson of Strowan."

Another form of the rhyme he gives thus :

Latha an Fheille-Bride

Their an nathair as an torn :

Cha bhi mise ri Nic Imheair,

'S cha mho bhios Nic Imheair rium,

i.e. 'On St. Brigit's Day the serpent will say from off
the knoll : I will not injure Nic Imheair, neither
will Nic Imheair injure me.' In Skye at least I
have heard of these lines having been repeated on
St. Brigit's Day, the woman doing so having placed
a burning peat in one of her stockings, and pounding
at it the while on the threshold of the outer door
(a specially sacred place) as a precaution against the
entrance of evil spirits. The Clan Iver are of Norse
origin,1 but whatever the origin of this belief I am
satisfied it is a phase of manism in the wide sense.
Maclver-Campbell was in his day Principal of
Aberdeen University, and related to Campbell, the
poet of The Pleasures of Hope and of Hokenlinden.
At a time when totemism was not as yet much
thought about, he notes as one interested in family
origins and crests that certain animals were sym-
bolical of particular clans : the magpie as friendly to
the Campbells (for its wearing argent and sable, the
old Campbell colours?), the horse a symbol or friend
of the Mac I vers of Glassary. Further, there were
certain nick-names, e.g. :

Crodh maol Chnapadail,
Eich chlbimheach Ghlasairigh,
Fithich dhubh Chraiginnis,
Is Coilich Airigh Sceodnis,

1v. a chapter in my Memoirs of a Highland Gentleman, E. Maclver
of Scourie.

168 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

i.e. ' The polled oxen of Cnapdale, the shaggy horses
of Glassary, the black ravens of Craignish, the cocks
of Airigh Sceodnish, meaning the folk of these parts/
It is proper to add, however, that another variant
of the serpent rhyme typifies the serpent as queen :
Lafhdille Brighde thig an righinn as an torn, i.e. 'On
St. Brides (Brigit's) Day the queen will come from
the knoll,' and its association with the act of pounding
a burning peat on the threshold1 involuntarily
reminds one of the Siberian ' Fiery Snake' or
zagovor (invoked for kindling amorous longing),
with which has been compared the folk-belief that
with the beginning of every January — i.e. at the
end of the festival in honour of the return of the
sun towards summer — the Fiery Snake begins to
fly, enters into the izbd through the chimney, turns
into a brave youth and steals by magic the hearts of
fair maidens. In a Servian song a girl who has
been carried off by a 'fiery-snake' calls herself his
'true love,' and it is thought that in mythical
language the ' Fiery Snake ' is one of the forms of
the lightning. " The blooming earth, fructified by
the rains poured forth during the first spring storms,
is turned in the myth into the bride of the Fiery
Snake. But the wedder of nature became looked
upon at a later period as the patron of weddings
among the children of men, and so the inducing of
love-pangs naturally became ascribed to the Fiery
Snake."2 This explanation is founded upon nature-

1 Cf. Irish phrase : ni bhtidhfios an ruin ag a7i fhar-doras, implying
that a secret is well kept when even the lintel stone of the doorway is
unaware of it.

2 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 370.

THE SERPENT 169

myth, but on Celtic ground I incline to postulate
ancestor worship, if not by the Celts, on the part
of pre-Celtic tribes in Britain. There is a serpent
mound in Glenelg, on the way to Scalasaig Farm ;
also in Lome ; there are serpents figured on some
stones ; and a folk-cure for serpent bite is to wash
the parts with water in which a serpent's head
has been boiled. On a Gaulish altar of the first
century of our era there is sculptured a serpent
with a ram's head. We may perhaps infer a serpent-
totem among the Gauls.1 Greek vase-paintings
portray the occupants of graves in the form of
snakes.2 In Virgil we meet Aeneas pouring liba-
tions on his father's tomb, when a gorgeous serpent
appeared, either the genius of the place or an atten-
dant on his father in the other world :

Silent, amazed stood Aeneas ; but the serpent its long length

trailing
Glided among the cups and the polished vessels of service,
Tasted the viands and back to the depths of the tomb receded,
Mindless of harm and left the tasted food and the altars.

Aeneid, v. 90-93.

One parallel from the lower cults will show that the
belief in the serpent-soul may be very real :

" In S. Africa the dead may re-appear in the form
of animals, but only for pure mischief. Widows are
often held in bondage and terror by their lords
returning in the guise of a serpent. This brute will
enter the house, hide in the thatch, and look at its
victim from between the rafters. It will coil itself
by the fire and steal into the beds ; it will glide over

1 Reinach, Cultes. 2Cf. Harrison, p. 325.

For Hebraic belief, v. Exod. ^-j ; Numb. ^l ; 2 Ki. y, etc.

i7o THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

articles of food and explore the interior of cooking
utensils. For this persistent persecution there is
but one remedy, and that is to kill the serpent,
when there is nothing left but 'pure spirit,' which
cannot appear in material form any more." 1

(i) The Soul in Wolf -form. — The existence of
this belief in animal parentage is seen from the
Leabhar Breathnach. Here we read : " The descen-
dants of the wolf are in Ossory (stl in Faelchon i
n-Osraigib). There are certain people in Eri, viz.
the race of Laighne Faelaidh, in Ossory ; they pass
into the form of wolves whenever they please, and
kill cattle according to the custom of wolves, and
they quit their own bodies ; when they go forth in
the wolf-forms they charge their friends not to
remove their bodies, for if they are moved they will
not be able to come again into them (their bodies) ;
and if they are wounded while abroad, the same
wounds will be on their bodies in their houses ; and
the raw flesh devoured while abroad will be in their
teeth."2 This belief was current in the days of
Fynes Moryson, who mentions the report that in
Upper Ossory and Ormond men are yearly turned
into wolves. And long before then Gerald, the
Welshman, had heard a story of two wolves who
had been a man and woman of the Ossorians.
They were transformed into wolves every seven
years through a curse imposed by St. Naal or
Natalis, abbot of Kilmanagh, Kilkenny, in the sixth
century. They were banished to Meath, where

1Macdonald's 'East Central African Customs' in Journ. Anth.
Inst. 22, p. 114.

3 Todd's Irish Version of Nennius, p. 204.

WOLF-FORM 171

they met a priest in a wood, shortly ere Earl John
came to Ireland in the days of Henry II. They
retained the use of language and were fabled with
having foretold the invasion of the foreigner. The
Latin legend declares the substance of what the
wolf said to the priest : " A certain sept of the
men of Ossory are we ; every seventh year through
the curse of St. Natalis the Abbot, we two, man
and woman, are compelled to leave our shape and
our bounds." Then having been divested of human
form, animal form is assumed. Having completed
their seven years, should they survive so long, if two
other Ossorians be substituted instead of these, the
former return to their pristine form and fatherland.

In personal and tribal names the wolf meets us,
e.g. Cinel Loairn, whence modern Lome in Argyll,
after which is named the marquisate in the ducal
family, from Gadhelic Loam, * wolf.' In Ireland it
is told of Laignech Faelad that he was the man
"that used to shift into wolf-shapes. He and his
offspring after him used to go whenever they
pleased, into the shapes of the wolves, and, after
the custom of wolves, kill the herds. Wherefore
he was called Laignech Fdelad, for he was the first
of them to go into a wolf- shape." 1

The Celtic god Dis Pater, from whom, according
to Caesar's account, the Gauls were descended, is
represented as clad in wolf-skin, and holding a
vessel, also a mallet with a long shaft, which,
Monsieur Reinach thinks, recalls the image of the
Etruscan Charon. " A low-relief at Sarrebourg,

1 Cdir Anmann, ed. Stokes, p. 377. For further references to the
man-wolf compare Eriu, iv. p. 11.

172 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

in Lorraine," says this eminent authority, " proves
that one of the epithets of this Gaulish god was
Sucellus, signifying ' one who strikes well.' The
wolf skin leads to the presumption that the god
was originally a wolf, roving and ravaging during
the night time. This god has been identified with
the Latin Silvanus, the woodman or forester who
gave chase to the wolves — of old a wolf himself.
On this view, which M. Reinach favours, at least
a section of the Gauls had a national legend
identical with that of the Romans : like Romulus
they were the children of the wolf, and M. Reinach
suggests that perhaps it was on this account that
the Arverni called themselves brethren of the
Latins.1 If so, we have a close parallel to
Gadhelic tradition.

Spenser says that "some of the Irish doe use
to make the wolf their gossip " ; and Camden adds
that they term them " Chari Christi, praying for
them, and wishing them well, and having con-
tracted this intimacy, professed to have no fear
from their four-footed allies." Fynes Moryson
expressly mentions the popular dislike to killing
wolves. Aubrey adds that "in Ireland they value
the fang-tooth of an wolfe, which they set in silver
and gold as we doe ye Coralls."2

At Claddagh there is a local saint, Mac Dara,
whose real name according to folk-belief was Sinach,
'a fox,'3 a probably non- Aryan name. The Irish

XS. Reinach's Orpheus, 5th French ed., Paris (Alcide Picard),
1909, p. 172.

2 v. references in Gomme, ib. p. 277. He also gives Geraldus
Cambrensis re St. Natalis.

3 Cf. Crimthann, ' wolf,' a name of Columba.

WOLF AND DOG-FORM 173

onchii, 'leopard,' also 'standard,' whence G. onnchon,
'standard,' from French onceau, once, 'a species
of jaguar,' seems preserved in Wester Ross with
the change of n to r, as or chu, written odhar
chu, in the sense of 'wolf: the howl of the
creature thus named inspired the natives of old
with a fear and awe which had their origin in
days when the wolf prowled of evenings among
the flocks.

(/) The Soul in Dog-form. — The dog is taboo in
almost the whole of Europe : it was a totem animal ;
and to eat tabooed food brings down the anger of
the spirits. The occurrence of dog-names among
the Celts, such as Cu-roi, Cu-chulainn would lead
one to include this phase likewise among the trans-
formations of the soul. Eating of dog flesh was
forbidden Cuchulainn, and the breaking of the
taboo brought him death. The West Mayo tradi-
tion quoted above, under section (e), states that
Oisin was half-brother to Bran, Fionn's Hound ;
that Bran was the daughter of Fionn by a lady who
came to him as an enchanted hound. There are
names of animal origin to be met with among
Highland surnames, e.g. Matheson is MacMhathain,
older Macmaghan, ' son of the bear ' ; Mac-Culloch
is Mac-Culloch, 'son of the boar.' Though wild
stories of supernatural dogs, such as the Black Dog
of Kinlochbervie and the wild black dog with fiery
eyes that came from the river at Eskadale may be
now ascribed in folk-lore to demonic influence, yet
the demon at an earlier stage is an aspect of the
theriomorphic soul. Cuilean, 'whelp,' is used in
the Highlands as a form of endearment. The

174 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

black dog (Manx : Moddey Doo, Manthe Dod)
that was seen at Peel Castle, Isle of Man, was
believed to be an evil spirit, which only waited
permission to do the soldiers hurt, and for that
reason they forbore swearing and all profane
discourse while in its company.1 None of them
liked to be left alone with such a companion.
Now as the Manthe Doog used to come out
and return by the passage through the church,
by which one of the men had to go to deliver
the keys every night to the captain on duty, the
men used to do the duty in couples, and never
would a man do it alone. One of the soldiers,
however, on a certain night, having taken more
drink than was good for him, insisted on going
with the keys alone, although it was not his turn.
His comrades in vain tried to dissuade him from
what they felt to be a dangerous and foolhardy
freak. Some time afterwards a great noise dis-
turbed the men in the guard-house, and, while
they were sitting wondering and awe-stricken, the
adventurous soldier broke in upon them. He was
inarticulate with horror and fright. He could not
even make signs to convey to his comrades what
had happened to him. The man was distracted,
mentally paralysed, and in an hour or two he
died, with his features distorted, obviously in
mental agony. After this no one would go through

1 Moore, Folk-Lore of the Isle of Matt, p. 62, where the account
in Waldron is quoted. If dog names be non-Celtic, even then a
parallel is got on non-Aryan ground in the Sacred Dog of China,
the Pekeingese. The aunt of the reigning Chinese Emperor in
1860-61 committed suicide on being unable to keep her canine pets
out of reach of the foreigner.

SEAL AND BOAR-FORM 175

the passage, which was soon closed up. The
apparition was never seen again !

(k) The Soul in Seal-form. — For an account of
this phase the reader is referred to my Norse
Influence on Celtic Scotland. It is unlucky to kill
the seal : it is a human being under spells.

(/) Boar-form. — The association of Diarmad's
death with his act of measuring the poisonous boar
against the bristle leads to an inference that the hero's
life was bound up with that of the boar. Yet here
there might be another explanation. But the fact
that swine's blood is held to be a sovereign cure for
warts by laving the parts therein, along with the
great aversion to eating pork in any form which I
have met with in old Highlanders, seems to point to
swine as sacred. The Gauls had a god Succellos,
from *sukku, * a pig.' In Campbell's West Highland
Tales there is an obsolete phrase an t-sreath
chuileanach, left untranslated : it should read ' an
treith chuileanach s a da chuilean deug,' i.e. ' the
mother sow with her litter of twelve.' See Cormac's
Glossary, sub Ore treth. Ultimately the word seems
the same as triath, 'lord, chief,' from *treitos, which
Stokes compared with L. tritavos, an ancestor in the
sixth degree. The Turc Trwyth of Welsh romance
and emblems on the so-called Boar-stones are pro-
bably in origin to be derived from a belief in kinship
with the boar.

A story is told of a he-goat having been seen very
often in a certain part of the islands and of people
who met with violence and sometimes with death
when they came to the spot frequented by him.
There was a suspicion that the goat was only a form

176 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

assumed by a weaver {breabadair) in the place. A
man called at the weaver's one day on his way
through the country. The weaver asked where he
was going to. The man told him. The weaver
asked if he were not afraid of passing the spot where
the goat was seen, — a spot fatal to many. The man
replied that he was not, that he bore his help on
his hip (' tha cobhair chruachainn agam '). When
he came to the spot the goat stood above him
and began to attack him. The man was being
worsted when the goat said : • Ca 'eil do chobhair
air chruachainn a nisd ? ' ' Where is the help on
your hip now ? ' The man replied as he drew forth
a dagger he had on his hip: ''S ann air a chuimhne
bha'n diulanas,' ' It was thy memory that had the
fortitude/ He killed the goat, and when he returned
to the weaver's house the blood of the weaver had
frozen ('bha fuil a' bhreabadair air reothadh'). —
Hugh M'Lennan, Dec. 7, 1895.

(m) The Soul in Semi-theriomorphic Form. — Here
the transition is made to the half-human aspect of
the soul in god-form. Creatures of the imagination
which have their basis in nature-myth, e.g. the
glaistig, the Bodach G/as, Peallaidh, perhaps the
Gruagach, and such as the C/ruisg, are not to be
included here. In point are the demons which
were said to haunt particular families as their good
or evil genius. The family of Rothiemurchus was
said to have been haunted by Bodach an Duiny
the Goblin or Ghost of the Dune ; the Baron
of Kinchardine's family by Red Hand (Lamh
Dhearg), or a 'ghost,' one of whose hands was
bloody red ; Gartinbeg by Bodach-Gartin ; Glen-

THE SEMI-THERIOMORPHIC SOUL 177

lochie by Brownie, as was also Belladrum House ;
Tullochgorm by Mag Molach, i.e. Hairy Hand or
'one with the left hand all over hairy,' as Lachlan
Shaw's History of the Province of Moray put it.
''I find," says Shaw, "in the Synod Records
of Moray, frequent orders to the Presbyteries of
Aberlaure and Abernethie, to enquire into the truth
of Maag Moulach's appearing. But they could make
no discovery, only that one or two men declared
they once saw in the evening a young girl whose
left hand was all hairy, and who instantly dis-
appeared." l This famous apparition is referred to
also in the Laird of Macfarlane's Geographical
Collections. Hairy Hand was supposed to come
down the chimney and to take children away. The
nearest parallel I find in the Russian Domovy, an
hirsute creature the whole of whose body save the
eyes and nose is covered with hair. The tracks of
his shaggy feet may be seen in winter time in the
snow ; his hairy hand is felt by night gliding over
the faces of sleepers.2 The Domovy is the house-
spirit, and specially haunts the stove ; the cultus was
connected with the burning fire on the domestic
hearth. In the Highlands too the hearth -fire is
held in awe, as witness the fact that it is forbidden
to pass between an epileptic and the fire ; to do so
was to draw upon one's self the disease.

The names given to some appearances show us
gods in the making, as when in Inverness-shire the
small-pox is called The Good Wife (^4' Bhean Mhath),
and the Devil is elsewhere euphemistically spoken

1 Shaw's Province of Moray, ed. 1775, pp. 306-307.

2Ralston's Songs of Russian People, p. 120.

178 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

of as Caomhan, ' the dear one, darling.' Among
Greeks and Slavs small-pox is personified as a
female ; the Servians call her bogine or goddess.
The conception of the Hairy Hand of the High-
lands is met with to a fuller extent in the Fynnod-
deree of the Isle of Man ; the word ' satyr ' of
Isaiah xxxiv. 14 is rendered in the Manx Bible as yn
Phynnodderree ; the name signifies ' the hairy-dun
one/ and this satyr is conceived as "something
between a man and a beast, being covered with
black shaggy hair and having fiery eyes M ; he is
prodigiously strong, is credited with giving aid in
lifting heavy stones for mansion-buildings, and with*
help in mowing the meadow grass ; some think of
him as a fairy expelled the Fairy Bower for having
loved a nymph as she sat beneath a tree in Glen
Aldyn ; u the scythe he had was cutting everything,
skinning the meadow to the sods, and if a leaf were
left standing he stamped it down with his heels."1

His was the wizard hand that toiled

At midnight's witching hour;

That gathered the sheep from the coming storm

Ere the shepherd saw it lower.

Yet asked no fee save a scattered sheaf

From the peasants' garnered hoard,

Or cream-bowl kissed by a virgin lip

To be left on the household board.

From the thought of the nymph beneath the tree
in dalliance with the Phynnodderree (there has not
been a merry world since he lost his ground, the old
Manxman said) I pass now to the spirit of the tree
or tree-soul.

1 Moore, Folklore of the Isle of Man, pp. 54, 57.

THE TREE-SOUL 179

(n) The Tree-Soul. — The Strathspey story given
above in illustration of the tree-soul tells also of a
tree as taken to witness, which points to a belief in
the tree-soul. The soul of the dead was believed to
pass into the tree. Herbs and flowers were fabled
to stow from the blood of the dead and so to
re-embody his spirit. Such metempsychosis is
connected with solemn sayings.

How a man's word of truth, if not his soul, may be
thus linked with a tree is shown from the belief
current in my boyhood as to a tree which grew from
the spot on which was the pulpit of Mr. Lachlan
Mackenzie, the gifted and eminent minister of Loch-
carron. Some said it was out of his grave that the
tree grew, and that Mr. Lachlan's solemn words to
his people were that they were not to believe a
word of what he preached unless after his death
a certain tree should grow on the spot on which
he stood or would be buried in. I have seen slips
cut from that tree at Lochcarron taken several
days' journey in memory of one regarded as a
prophet. And I may- quote the following from a
successor of his :

"A large and beautiful red elder-berry tree, —
after the roof was taken off the church, — grew out
of the stone foundation of Mr. Lachlan's pulpit.
After the tree grew it was reported that Mr. Lachlan
had stated that when a tree, growing out of the spot
where he stood, grew to the height of the church
walls, popery would be in the ascendant in the
district. That was how I heard it reported when
the Duke of Leeds, whose DuchesS was a keen
Roman Catholic, owned the property.

180 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

"It was thought there was not another tree of the
kind in the world. My father, however, had one in
front of the manse close by, and I have now more
than one here, grown from slips cut off Mr. Lachlan's
the year I left Lochcarron." x Folk-belief ever reflects
the shadows of its own fears and fancies, and likewise
of its hopes. Iseult, in Cornish legend, after the loss
of her lover, died broken-hearted and was buried in
the same church with Tristram. Ivy, or else a rose
and vine, sprang from either grave until it met its
fellow at the crown of the vault roof.

Under this heading one might place a good deal
of the folk-lore of the rowan tree. Everywhere in
Celtdom it is semi-sacred. In Wales " it was con-
sidered lucky to have a mountain ash growing near
your premises. The berries brought into the house
were followed by prosperity and success. A bunch
of the berries worn in girdle or bodice kept women
from being bewitched."2 In the Highlands crosses
of rowan twigs are placed under the milk-pans, and
one has sometimes seen them tied with red thread
to a cow's tail. Pieces of rowan wood are stuck in
the turf from the inside above the byre door, with
the intent of keeping the cattle and their milk from
being bewitched. And it is thought lucky to have a
rowan tree growing near the house. In the High-
land version of the legend of Fraoch, given in the
Dean of Lismore's book, the rowan tree is a sort of
tree of Life ; it bears fruit every month and every

1 Letter from Rev. Dr. K. A. Mackenzie, minister of Kingussie,
dated 5th July, 1900. His father was minister of Lochcarron after
Mr. Lachlan Mackenzie's death.

2Trevelyan, 103.

THE ROWAN AS TREE OF LIFE 181

quarter, and the virtue of its red berries when tasted
was such as to stave off hunger for long.

Its berries' juice and fruit when red
For a year would life prolong.
From dread disease it gave relief
If what is told be our belief.
Yet though it proved a means of life

Peril lay closely nigh;
Coiled by its root a dragon lay

Forbidding passage by.

And Queen Meve feigned sickness and said :

That ne'er would she be whole

Till her soft palm were full

Of berries from the island on the lake — 1

And of old, in the case of the oak, when stripped of
its leaves, its spirit was held to have gone into the
mistletoe, and thus became a means of blessing and
of fertility.

The Teutons and the Celts, and other peoples,
seem, with regard to the tree-soul, to think alike.
When the innocent are put to death, white lilies
grow out of the graves, three lilies on that of a
maiden,2 which no one but her lover may pluck.
From the mounds of buried lovers flowering shrubs
spring up, whose branches intertwine, — a belief
illustrated in the Barra version of the story of
Deirdire : " The wicked king ordered her body to
be lifted out of the grave and to be buried on the
other side of the loch. It was done as the king-
commanded, and the grave was closed. Then a

1 See the writer's rendering of the Lay in the Celtic Dragon Myth,
pp. 20-22 (Edinburgh : J. Grant). For another tale wherein the
quicken tree figures, see Joyce's Old Gaelic Romances.

2Uhland's Volkslieder, 241.

182 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

young pine branch grew from the grave of Deirdire,
and a young pine branch from the grave of Naoise,
and the two branches twined together over the lake.
Then the king commanded that the two young pine
branches should be cut down, and this was done
twice, till the wife whom the king married made him
to cease from the bad work and his persecution of
the way of the dead ! 1 With this I would compare
the lilies and limes said to grow out of graves in
Swedish songs ; also Percy's ballad of Fair Margaret
and Sweet William :

Out of her breast there sprang a rose

And out of his a briar :

They grew till they grew unto the church top,

And there they tied in a true lover's knot.

There originally underlay this the idea of the in-
stantaneous passage of the soul into a flower, a bush,
a tree, just as Daphne and Syrinx, when they cannot
elude the pursuit of Apollo or Pan, change them-
selves into a laurel or a reed.

Virgil makes the cornel and myrtle which grew
on the grave of Polydorus at once bleed and speak
when torn up by the hand of Aeneas.2 And Ovid
speaks of an ancient oak, itself a grove, with votive
tablets hung and grateful gifts for vows accom-
plished.3 Underneath its shade the dryads wove
their festal dance. Theocritus tells how at the
consecration of Helen's plane tree at Sparta
the choir of maidens hung consecrated wreaths of
lotus flowers upon the tree, with costly spikenard

1 Deirdire and the Lay of the Children of Uisne, ed. A. Carmichael,
p. in.

2Aeneid, iii. 27-34. 3 Metamorph. viii. 741.

THE ROWAN AS TREE OF LIFE 183

anointed it, and attached to it the dedicatory
placard i1 " Honour me all ye that pass by for
I am Helen's tree."

We may compare the fortune of the Hays of
Errol, bound up with an immemorial oak :

While the mistletoe bats on Errol's aik,

And the aik stands fast,
The Hays shall flourish, and their good grey hawk

Shall nocht flinch before the blast.

But when the root of the aik decays,

And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast,

The grass shall grow on Errol's hearth-stane
And the corbie roup in the falcon's nest.

Thomas the Rhymer.

At Glasgow it seems probable that Christianity
was grafted on pre-Christian faith. The oak, the
salmon, and the red-breast on the arms of the city
of Glasgow allow of this interpretation. Upon a
tree in the forest clearing, St. Kentigern is said to
have hung his bell. The pet red-breast of Servanus,
his teacher at Culross, he restored to life ; the signet
ring of Queen Langweneth he found in the belly of a
salmon. Kentigern's oak had a sanctity of its own,
apart from its use as a Christian belfry. Compare
the oaks of Brigit and of Colum Cille.2

Let me give in few words an instance of tree-lore
from living tradition, not far from the capital of old
Pictland. Plreig, it says, was a woman who was
murdered, and a tree planted in remembrance of her
grew near Cononbank, in the parish of Kirkhill,

1 Idylls xviii. 48.

2 For a curious custom of telling the trees of certain things in
Cornwall, see Couch, History of Poiperro^ p. 168.

184 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Inverness-shire. It was an uncanny place. A grey
beast used at times to be seen there ; it was cat-like
in appearance, and thought by some to be a tannasg
or tasg, 'apparition, ghost.'1 Such a creature followed
in the track of a cart which was going to town at an
early hour. My informants said it followed them
until dawn, when, on coming to a bridge, it gave an
unearthly yell, it being a property of the ghost or
apparition to give a loud cry as it passes over
running water.2 An intelligent correspondent, whose
memory goes back to the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century, writes me : " Your enquiry about
Craobh Pireig put me in mind of old times. I knew
the tree well. It was considered an unlucky place
to be about that tree before the ground round about
was brought into cultivation. I used to be frightened
if passing there at night ; fairies, ghosts, and robbers
were said to be dwellers in the locality, but all this
is changed now. The railway whistle and the
plough have chased all the bogies away. In my
younger days the road passing Craobh Pireig was a
desolate place, surrounded by trees and bushes of

1 A celebrated one was Tasg Sheumais Mh6ir. The shepherd and
the farmer and the miller heard it. All agreed it was Tasg Sheumais
Mhoir. And they were right (they thought).

2 Cha chreid mi gur h-e beathach ceart th'ann ; aig an drochaid
thug e sgal chruaidh thug fuaim air na creagan aig Meile-fitheach.
Cha'n urrainn tasg dhol seachad air uisg gun sgriamhail. Theid
an tasg a reir pearsa an duine : sgread chruaidh bhiorach : bheireadh e
air a h-uile gaoistean fuilt umad seasamh air a cheann = I do not
believe that it was a right {i.e. natural) creature : at the bridge it
gave a harsh yell that resounded among the rocks of Meile-fitheach.
A ghost cannot go across water without screeching. The ghost
bears a proportion to the human personality ; a hard piercing yell
(in this instance, of Big James's ghost) ; it would make every hair on
thee stand on end.

THE ROWAN AS TREE OF LIFE 185

all kinds, but this is now all under cultivation and
clear of all romance. I may say Craobh Pireig was
what I may call a geen (cherry) tree of good average
size, growing at the road side between Beauly and
Inverness, and hardly used by the boys on their way
to Kirkhill parish school, as long as a single geen
could be found on it. It was in my younger days a
lonely tree on a lonely muir about five miles from
Beauly. There was no sign of any stone circle
about it. The country people did not like to be in
the locality after sunset."

The name of the ancient sacred tree was Bile,
wrongly translated in Lord Archibald Campbell's
Records of Argyll (p. 123). The tradition there
narrated clearly points to a sacred tree, near the
well called Tobar Bhile na Beinne. Any one who
drank its water left some equivalent to the fairy who
was supposed to guard it. " Beside it was a very
old elm tree with a hole in the side and a hollow
in the middle, and into this hole was thrown any-
thing given ; and in my young days I remember
it being full of all sorts of things — coins, pins,
buttons, beads, of which it has all been emptied long
ago. There is also beside it a little unenclosed
graveyard, where none were put but infants who
died before being baptized ; and to this day the
little graves are seen lying thick and close in their
resting-place."

Another Tobar na Bile is between Torran and
Inverliver, by the road side two miles or so from
Ford. Its water had some connection with the
owner's life. For legend tells us that when some
Inverliver chieftain was abroad, that the family

186 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

jester one day noticed the water beginning to sink
and by-and-by disappearing. But one happy morn-
ing he found the well again full of water, and ran to
the house crying out that his master was in Scotland,
which afterwards proved to be the case. In the
cemetery near hand there ' fell from the sky ' a
bone that cured madness, Barbreck's bone, now in
the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh.

Manx billey-glas, 'a growing or green tree,'
occurs in the Manx Bible (Jer. xi. 16). In Scotland
it is met with at Benderloch in Tobar bhile nam
miann, 'the well of the wishing tree.' There were
formerly some stones near the place, as if a little
graveyard had been there at one time (cf. The Oban
Times, 4th and 18th March, 1907). I believe it is
the word in Balavil, near Kingussie ; there is an
exceedingly old elm tree at the house, and also a
well quite near it. The sacred associations are
there absent, but they are met with in Cladh Bhile,
Kintyre.

There is an ancient burying ground termed
Cladh Bhile, near Ellary, Loch Caolisport, Knap-
dale, "situated about mid- way down the western
side of Loch Caolisport, at the height of over 200 ft.
above the sea-level, and nearly in the centre of the
steep hill slopes immediately abutting upon this
portion of the loch, between Eilean-na-Bruachain at
Ellary, and Rudha-an-Tubhaidh."1, There is an
absence of recumbent stones, everything upon the
ground that can in any way be ranked as memorials
of the dead being exclusively pillar-stones, intended

1 Proceed. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, vol. xii., year 1876- 1877, by Mr.
William Galloway, architect.

THE SACRED TREE 187

not to be flat but to be set upright upon the grave.
The burying ground is of ancient date. Here we
meet with the old Gaelic word Bile, ' a tree/ ''The
word was generally applied," says Joyce, "to a
large tree which, for any reason, was held in
veneration by the people ; for instance, one under
which their chiefs used to be inaugurated, or
periodical games celebrated. Trees of this kind
were regarded with intense reverence and affection ;
one of the greatest triumphs that a tribe could
achieve over their enemies, was to cut down their
inauguration tree, and no outrage was more keenly
resented, or, when possible, visited with sharper
retribution. . . . These trees were pretty common in
past times ; some of them remain to this day, and
are often called Bell trees, or Bellow trees, an echo
of the old word bile. In most cases, however, they
have long since disappeared, but their names remain
on many places to attest their former existence."1
Magh-Bile, modernised Movile, is 'the plain of
the [sacred] tree/ where St. Finian founded his
monastery in Co. Down, in the sixth century ;
Domnach-Bile, on the banks of Loch Foyle, where
was a monastery said to have been founded by
Patrick (Archdall's Monasticon Hib. p. 103) ; Bile-
Ckuais, now Bally hoos, Clonfert, Gal way ; Clochdn-
Bile-teine, now Cloghaunnatinny, Kilmurry, Clare,
is interpreted by Joyce, ' the stepping stones of the
fire-tree/ from a large tree which grew near the
crossing, under which May fires used to be lighted ;
Bile-teineadky 'the old tree of the fire/ identified by
O'Donovan as near Moynalty, in Meath, and now

Joyce's Irish Names of Places.

i88 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

called Coill-d-bhile, the wood of the bile or old tree,
anglicised Billywood ; alt-a-bile, now Altavilla, in
Limerick and Queen's County; Rinn-bhile, now
Ringville ; Tobar-Bile, ' the well of the ancient tree/
" some wells taking their names from the picturesque
old trees that overshadowed them, and which are
preserved by the people with great veneration," as
at Toberbilly, Antrim, and at Tobervilla, West-
meath ; Garran-a'-bhile, Garnavilla, Tipperary ;
Rathbile, now Rathvilly, Carlow.

Mr. Galloway, in a note, adds that it was under
these trees that the Lia Fail or Stone of Destiny,
pertaining to the tribe, was placed, — to break it up
or carry it away being a necessary complement to
the destruction of the tree. Dr. Stuart suggests
that Edward I. may have been actuated by
analogous motives in carrying off the Scottish
Stone of Destiny from Scone.1

There was another tree that I know of which was
regarded with awe, viz. an old ash tree (A1 Chraobh
Uinnsinn), now no longer standing, on the Eskadale
estate in Kiltarlity ; a light seen therein from time
to time was looked on as a foreboding of death. As
the Norse influence extended to this district, clearly
evident in the name Eskadale, i.e. ' Ash-dale,' from
the Norse, the ash-tree associations may not be
quite native. Old Icelandic . legend tells that at
Modhrufell there stood a mountain-ash which sprang
from the blood of two innocent persons who had
been executed there. Every Christmas eve the
tree was to be seen covered with lights, which the
strongest gale could not extinguish.

1 Proceed. Soc. Antiq. Scot. viii. 104

THE SACRED TREE 189

From St. Rodan's tree, called Tylia, there dropped
a fluid on which his monks lived. And, again, one
recollects the celebrated tree of Glastonbury, said to
have been sprung from Joseph of Arimathea's staff.
King James I. and his Queen gave large sums for
cuttings from this variety of hawthorn — the Crataegus
oxyacantha praecox, a winter flower.

the winter thorn
Which blossoms at Xmas, mindful of our Lord.

In Ireland there were specially celebrated trees such
as the oak of Mugna, the ash of Usnech, the ash of
Tortu, mentioned as having fallen in the days of
Aed Slane.1

An unpublished Gadhelic tale, Cailleack Na Rio-
baig, which is the same story as that of the witch in
the Lady of the Lake, shows the tree-soul associated
with the element of water.2

" The Bile Tprtan stood in Magh Tortan in
Meath, near Ardbreacan, and was blown down in
the reign of the sons of Aedh Slaine, about the
middle of the seventh century. This tree was one
of the three wonderful trees of Eirinn, and had
stood at the time of the Milesian conquest, more
than a thousand years."3 " Bile Tortan, Eo Rossa,
Craebh Mughna, Craebh Dathi, Bile Uisnigh were
five ancient trees which sprang up in Erin in the
reign of Conaing Begeglach (Anno Mundi 4388).
Conaing held a certain assembly at Tara . . . and they

xCf. poem on three celebrated trees of Ireland in Celtische Zeit-
schrift, v. 21.

2 Campbell of Islay, MS. Collection, Advocates' Library, vol. x.,
last tale.

3 Leabhar na g-Ceart, 151", and v. Battle of Magh Leana and Toch-
marc Momera, ed. O'Curry, p. 67°.

i9o THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

saw cominor towards them from the west a man of

wonderful size, carrying in his hand a branch of a
tree bearing apples, nuts, acorns, and berries. . . .
He told them he had come from the place of the
sun's rising in the east to the place of its going
down in the west, to know why it had stood still
for a day, and having obtained the cause of this
irregularity that he was now on his return again
to the east. He shook the produce of this branch
on the ground ; and these being taken up by various
persons and planted in various localities, produced
these wonderful trees which were all blown down
in the seventh century. The Bile Tortan near
Ardbreacan, in the Co. Meath, was ash. The Eo
Rossa near Leith-Ghleann (Leithlin) was a yew
tree, and became the property of St. Molaise of
Leith-Ghlenn, from which St. Moling obtained as
much of it as made shingles for his Duirthech or
Oratory, at Tech Moling, now St. Mullin's, on the
river Barrow in Co. Carlow, and which was built for
him by . . . Goban Saor. According to an Irish
life of St. Moling . . . the Craebh Mughna was oak,
and stood near Bealach Mughna in Magh Ailbhe, in
the southern part of Co. Kildare. The Craebh
Dathi was ash, and stood in the district of Fir Bile
(now Ferbil), to which it gave name, in Co. West-
meath. The Craebh Uisnigh was ash, and stood on
the hill of Uisnech, in Co. Westmeath."1

In passing one may query whether the Sanskrit
bilva in urti-bilva, the wide-spreading Bel- or wood-
apple tree, be cognate with G. bile. Indian legend
says that at the moment of Buddha's birth his future

1 O'Curry's Magh Leana, 95°, after MS. H. 2, 16 (Roy. Ir. Acad.).

THE SACRED TREE 191

wife was born, and also the sacred Bo-tree, under
which he was destined to attain Buddhahood, — a
form of the Life-tree.

" King Conchobair had three houses, namely, the
Craebh Ruaidh, and the Tete Brec, and the Craebh
Derg [that is, the ■ Royal Branch ' or Court, and the
Speckled Branch, and the Red Branch]. In the
Red Court were kept the skulls [of the enemies],
and their spoils and trophies. In the Royal Court
sat the kings ; that is, it was Ruadh [or royal]
because of the kings.1 In the Speckled Court were
kept the spears and the shields and the swords ; that
is, it was speckled from the hilts of golden-hilted
swords, and from the glistening of the green spears,
with their rings or collars and their bands of gold and
silver ; and the scales and borders of the shields,
composed of gold and of silver ; and from the lustre
of the vessels and [drinking] horns, and the flagons."
Now Ritad ro-fhessa, which has been rendered
1 Lord of great knowledge,' is another name for the
Dagdha in Cormac's Glossary, so that the suggestion
strikes one that here we have to do with a tree
sacred to the Dagdha, or to some one of the name
Ruad. Are we to think of a blood or life-tree,
much as in Scotland a tree is associated with the
' luck ' of the Hays of Errol, and as one wishes
' freshness to the hawthorn tree of Cawdor,' now
about five hundred years old ? O'Clery has ruad
. i. trdn, * strong,' which may be but a secondary sense.
For meaning one might compare the Sanskrit raud/i,

1 Issin Chroeb-ruaid, imorro, no bitis narrig, edhon ba ruad do
na rigaib. See O'Curry's trans., Mamiers a?id Customs, ii. p. 332,
from Bk. of Leinster^H. 2, 16, fol. 69 b.b.

192 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

• blood ' ; but consider Church Slavonic rodu, ' birth/
and the Russian rod, 'clan.' A satisfactory solution
would be found in the life of the king being united
to the life of the tree, an incarnation of the Dagda
or Oll-athair. Certain it is that a sacred tree figures
in Irish legend, e.g. 'the apple tree of Emain.' When
Bran, the son of Febal, awoke from his entranced
sleep, he saw beside him a branch of silver with
white blossoms ; thereafter the woman in strange
raiment sang and said : 1

A branch of the apple-tree from Emain
I bring, like those one knows;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal brows with blossoms

• • • • •

An ancient tree (bile) there is with blossoms
On which birds call to the Hours.

The passage occurs in a context which undoubtedly
describes a vision of the Happy Land. Again, in
the Sickbed of Cuchulainn? three trees of bright
purple (tri bile do chorcoir glain) are described as a
feature in the Other- World landscape.

Near that house to the westward

Where sunlight sinks down,
Stand grey steeds with manes dappled

And steeds purple-brown.

On its east side are standing

Three bright purple trees,
Whence the birds' songs oft ringing

The king's children please.

1 Voyage of Bran, ed. Meyer, pp. 4 and 6.
2S.C. § 33 and Leahy's translation.

THE SACRED TREE 193

From a tree in the fore-court

Sweet harmony streams,
It stands silver yet sunlit

With gold's glitter gleams.

The silver bough 1 is a feature of Gadhelic legend,
as the golden bough is of Italic. Just as Jupiter
was originally worshipped in the form of a lofty oak
tree which grew on the Capitol, and as Dodona was
the haunt of deity among the Greeks, so the Celts,
as Maxim of Tyre tells us, worshipped Zeus under
the image of an oak. Only rare fragments survive
now to remind us of the god-tree, as when on the
first of May the pilgrim to St. Mary Well, near
Culloden, has not fulfilled his duty until he has
bound some rag on the adjoining tree, even if he
has no coin to put into the holy well. To leave
something on the tree or bush near by the well
was an essential ; this bound one's offering to the
habitation of the deity of the spring ; it took the
tree-spirit to witness. And in my own recollection,
when a death occurred among. the cattle in spring,
the earchall or misfortune was put away by con-
veying, in secrecy and in silence, the hooves of
the animal and other portions preferably across
a water-boundary to a neighbouring estate or
to a wood, where they were buried under the
roots of some great tree not likely to be soon
moved.

In the Tristran saga the tree whispers the secret

told it, viz. that King Mark had horses ears, —

another instance of the tree-soul ; and some reflex

• of the tree-spirit survives in the branch of laurel

1 Cf. E. Hull, 'The Silver Bough', in Folk-Lore.

i94 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

given to a bride at Carnac, in Brittany, with which
one may compare the decorated pine-bough brought
to the house of a bride in parts of Russia. The
tree is a thing of life ; the wind in the leaves, from
the mystic whisper to the roaring blast, seems to
come from some mind or spirit. The Australians
took these for the voices of the spirits communing
with one another, and some of their tribes held that
it was through understanding these voices that their
medicine-men got supernatural knowledge by com-
municating with the world of spirits.1 Similarly, the
Greeks spoke of the oracular oak of Zeus and the
Semites of a tree of knowledge. And sundry
Persian families traced their descent from a tree.
Primitive man, it has been said, was arboreal. A
hollow tree was his home, its branches his place
of refuge, its fruit his sustenance. Naturally, the
tree became associated with his earliest religious
thoughts. It represented his protecting deity. He
would not willingly injure it. When the Mandans
cut a pole for their tents, they swathe it in bandages
so that its pain may be allayed. The Hidatsas
would not cut down a large cotton-wood tree because
it guarded their tribe. The Algonquins decked an
old oak with offerings suspended to its branches, for
the same reason. Trees, from their dripping foliage,
and because their shade was associated with the
grey of a cloudy day, were believed to make the
rains, and thus to refresh the fields and to fertilise
the seeds of the vegetable world. The step was
easily taken to extend this to all germs, animal as

lCtttr, The Australian Race, ii. 199 ; and Palmer mjourn. Anthr.
Inst. xiii. 292.

THE SACRED TREE 195

well as vegetable. Thus the tree came to symbolise
the source of life.1

Tacitus describes the Germans as building no
temples, but worshipping their mysterious divinity,
secretum Mud, in the gloom of the forest.

Not otherwise would it have been with the Celts.
The same root as in re/mei/os, 'a sacred precinct,'
seems to occur in the word Temair, of which there
are many instances in Ireland, e.g. Temhair Luachra,
a celebrated royal residence in Munster, and others
cited by Hennessy in a footnote to his edition of
the Mesca Ulad. Temair Erand was the burial
place of the Clanna Dedad, who occupied a great
part of Cork and Kerry. Most readers have heard
of the Temair in Meath, the celebrated Tara of the
Kings. The word is thus explained :

" Temair, then, every place from which there is
a remarkable prospect, both in plain and house,"
temair na tuaithe, the temair of the country, i.e. 'a
hill,' temair in tige, the temair of a house, i.e. 'an
upper room.' It is still the name of several con-
spicuous hills in Ireland ; it is defined in the
Dinnsenchas : " omnis locus conspicuus et eminens
sive in campo sive in domu, sive in quocumque
loco sit, hoc vocabulo quod dicitur Temair nominari
potest."2 Dr. Joyce observes that every Temhair in
Ireland is conspicuously situated ; the great Tara in
Meath is a most characteristic example. It is the
genitive form, teamhrach, that is the origin of the
name Tara. The other names given to the great
Tara by the Firbolg, viz. Druim-Caein [Drumkeen],

1 Brinton's Religion of Primitive Peoples, p. 150.
2Cormac's Glossary > ed. Stokes, p. 155.

196 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

* beautiful ridge,' and also Liathdruim (Leitrim),
may point to a time when it was not used for temple
purposes, or may at least indicate that the chosen
temple sites were places that invariably commanded
a good view. The instinct which led the Christian
priests and monks to select beautiful sites for their
churches, we may pre-suppose as active in those
who chose the positions of the pre-Christian temples.
Yet the idea at the root was not 'good view' — a
secondary though accompanying thought — but a
precinct, a sacred enclosure cut off, perhaps for
purposes of royal burial at first, as is allowable to
infer from Senchtis nan Relec.

I will conclude by mentioning the legend Keating
narrates of Labhraidh Loingseach, who had ears
like those of a horse. He had his hair cropped
yearly, and thereafter killed whosoever chanced to
cut it. It was necessary to cast lots to determine
who should perform this office. On one occasion
the lot fell on a widow's son, and the king granted
him life if he promised to keep the secret till his
death. But having cropped the king, the youth
was obliged to lie on a bed of sickness, and no
medicine availed him. A druid found that the cause
was the burden of a secret, and that he would not
be well till he revealed his secret to something ; and
he directed him, since he was bound not to tell his
secret to a person, to go to where four roads met,
and to turn to his right and to address the first tree
he met, and to tell his secret to it. He did so, and
the pain left him. It was a willow tree ; and it
chanced soon after that Craiftine's harp got broken,
and he went to seek the material for a harp. He

THE SACRED TREE 197

came upon this very willow, and when the harp was
made of it, as often as it was played its burden
of song was : * Two horse's ears on Labhraidh
Lore' The king then repented of having put so
many people to death, showed his ears ever after-
wards openly. It is clearly an instance of the tree-
soul.1

I may add that parallels to the idea of the tree-
soul are abundant. In the Malay Peninsula the
name of every child is taken M from some tree which
stands near the prospective birth-place of the child ;
as soon as the child is born, this name is shouted
aloud by the wise woman in attendance, who then
hands over the child to another woman, and buries
the after-birth underneath the birth-tree or name-
tree of the child ; as soon as this has been done, the
father cuts a series of notches in the tree, starting
from the ground and terminating at the height of
the breast."2

This tree, or any of its species, the child must
not in after life injure or eat the fruit of. This
points to an early theory of conception, from
which Dr. Frazer would explain Totemism. For
human souls grow upon a soul-tree in the Other
World : the birds which fetch them from thence
are killed and eaten by the expectant mother.
The consistency of this belief is seen in the fancy
that if the mother does not eat the soul-bird during
her lying-in, the child will be still-born or die shortly
after being born. Such ideas should be remembered

1 Keatjng's History of Ireland, ed. Irish Texts Society, vol. ii.

173-175-
2Skeat and Blagden's Pagan Races of Malay Peninsula, i. 13.

i98 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

when one reads of the flock of birds into which
Dechtere and her maidens are transformed in the
Cuchulainn Saga.1

In Greece, where Zeus and Dionysos are conceived
as dwelling in trees — evSevSpoi — the transition was
made from the tree to the tree-column or pillar as the
depository of divine life, and rites of invocation took
place at the shrines. In Gaul inscriptions2 such as

SEX ARBORIBUS ET FATIS DERVONIBUS, dedicated to

the genii of the oaks, point to tree worship : dea
abnoba and dea ardvinna, the Black Forest and
the Ardennes respectively, confirm this, and are
parallel to the nigra dea, ' black goddess/ which
Adamnan gave as a rendering for Lochy, the river
and loch of the name in Lochaber.

(o) The Soul in Stones or the God-stone. — Stones
were formerly believed to have a soul, and certain
large ones not readily moved were held to be in
intimate connection with spirits. In the Highlands
it is regarded as a source of danger to make use of
pillared stones (clachan carraghan) in building human
or other dwellings. Ill-luck or death follows any one

1 Such concepts fit in with the matriarchal stage of society. Mr.
Gomme remarks : "The soul-bird belief and the tree-naming custom
are different phases of one conception of social life, a conception
definitely excluding recognition of blood-kinship, and derived from
the conscious adoption of an experience which has not reached the
stage of blood-kinship, but which includes a close association with
natural objects" {Folk-Lore as an Historical Science, p. 248). Thus
among the Arunta tribe in Australia the child is thought to be the
reincarnation of one of the spirits which haunted the spot or totem-
centre where the mother first felt herself quickened. There is sym-
pathetic association with the object or external soul. Totemism is
really no product of any conceptual theory, as Dr. Frazer argues for ;
it falls under the wider category of Manism.

2 H. Gaidoz, Esquisse de la Religion des Gaulois, p. 12.

THE SACRED STONE 199

who meddles with such ' druidical ' stones as are
found in the numerous stone circles in Inverness-
shire. After ceremonies for averting the * evil eye '
(G. cronachduinn, Gr. aTroTpoirrj), what remains of the
water ritually used is poured over a block of stone
that is either immovable or not likely to be interfered
with; when cracks make their appearance in such
stones the explanation given is that envy will
split the rocks (sgoiltidh farmad a chlach). When
one is narrating some untoward disaster, or even
making mention thereof, a Highland woman of
the old school will add under her breath, ' telling
it to the stones ' (ga innseadk dha na clachan),
and proceed with her narrative with much dignity
and solemnity. The use of this phrase is supposed
to avert any harm arising either to the speaker or
the listener.

For Ireland I find that Keating1 mentions the
striking of the head against a stone as a ceremony
boding success. Stones such as the Lla Fail, known
as ' the stone of destiny,' possibly ' the stone of light '
if Welsh gwawl be cognate, would know their right-
ful owner. This involves animistic belief, which
would explain the late form of the tradition in
Keating 2 that on the Lla Fail ' were enchantments,
for it used to roar under the person who had the
best right to obtain the sovereignty of Ireland.'
Among the four jewels of the Tuatha De Danann a
certain poem3 mentions the Lla Fail, ' which used to
roar under a king of Ireland.' The stone is said to

1Bk. ii. 53 (ed. Dinneen). 2 lb. i. 101.

3 lb. 209; cf. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica,\\. 264; Meyer and Nutt's
Bran, i. 187, and the tale of ' Baile an Scail ' in the same work.

200 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

have come from the island of Foal to abide for ever
in the land of Tailtiu.

In Scottish records it is mentioned in 1249 at the
coronation of Alexander III. at Scone; in 1296 it
was carried off by Edward I. and placed in the chair
of the celebrant priest in St. Edward's Chapel in
Westminster Abbey. It is a stone of magic in origin,
and the prophecies associated with it were thought
to have been in part at least fulfilled when James VI.
of Scotland acceded to the English Crown. Stones
were often ascribed prophetical and healing virtues
among the Celts. It was owing to the crystal stone
which the Brahan Seer possessed that he had the
gift of prophecy : such was also the case with his
Irish parallel, Red Brian O'Cearbhan, who owned
a precious jewel (ailleagan). Magic stones were
associated with healing and were known to be in the
possession of wizards : dipped in water they were
held potent to avert the evil eye, to my own know-
ledge. In a book which appeared a few years ago
by the late Rev. Mr. Macdonald, for long a clergy-
man in West Ross-shire, he writes: "The stitch-stone
was a charm supposed to give relief in cases of severe
pain from sciatica up to acute pleurisy. It was
common property, and always kept by the person
who used it last till required by another. The last
specimen of which I heard about 30 years ago was
in Erradale, parish of Gairloch. Mr. Matheson,
F.C. minister, got hold of it and took it to the
pulpit one day. At the close of the service he held
it up before the congregation, remarking that the
god of Erradale was the smallest god of which he
had ever heard or read. It was a small piece of

THE SACRED STONE 201

flint stone, 3 or 4 in. long, found on the shore and
highly polished by the action of the waves. . . .
Mr. Matheson broke it in their presence, and yet no
dire results followed."1

Pennant mentions the belief as current in the
Highlands of the eighteenth century. He writes :

" Elf- shots, i.e. the stone arrow-heads of the
old inhabitants of this island, are supposed to be
weapons shot by Fairies at cattle, to which are
attributed any disorders they have : in order to
effect a cure, the cow is to be touched by an elf-
shot, or made to drink the water in which one has
been dipped. The same virtue is said to be found
in the crystal gems, and in the adder-stone, our
Glein Naidr\ and it is also believed that good
fortune must attend the owner ; so, for that reason,
the first is called Clach bhuaidh, or the powerful
stone (recte, stone of virtues). Captain Archibald
Campbell showed me one, a spheroid set in silver,
which people came for the use of above a hundred
miles, and brought the water it was to be dipt in
with them ; for without that, in human cases, it was
believed to have no effect.

" These have been supposed to be magical stones
or gems used by the Druids to be inspected by a
chaste boy, who was to see in them an apparition
informing him of future events. This imposture, as
we are told by Dr. Woodward, was revived in the
last century by the famous Dr. Dee, who called it

1Rev. K. Macdonald of Applecross, Social and Religions Life in the
Highlands, p. 34 (Edinburgh, 1902). Mr. Lang {Hist, of Scotland, ii.
560) speaks of a seat with a stone in it as still existing in Glasgow, and
of a black capping-stone at St. Andrews, and asks : 'Is this a relic of
fetichism ?'

202 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

his shew stone or holy stone, and pretended, by its
means, to foretell events. I find in Montfaucon that
it was customary in early times to deposit balls of
this kind in urns or sepulchres ; thus twenty were
found at Rome in an alabastrine urn, and one was
discovered in 1653, in the tomb of Childeric at
Tournai ; he was king of France, and died a.d. 480."

Further illustration of stones in ritual I will sfive
later on. Suffice it to add that such magic use pre-
supposes that the stone was believed to have a soul.
It is an idea not confined to uncivilised man. Ber-
tholet remarks that in ancient Athens, with its
famous culture, if a man was killed by a falling stone,
a special court was held to pass sentence upon the
offending object, which was condemned and trans-
ported beyond the frontier !

All over the Celtic area the stone-cult is met with.
In parts of France newly-born children are placed on
or passed over certain stones in the vicinity of or in
certain churches. I need only refer to the innumer-
able instances given by M. Salomon Reinach ! of the
respect and awe inspired still by menhirs, dolmens
and other sacred stones from which we may form
some idea of the reverence in which they were held
of old in Gaul. In parts of Brittany it is believed,
that certain stones go once a year, or once in every
century, to be laved in the sea or in a river, and
speedily return. Sacred stones when removed are
held to come back of themselves in the night. The
number of stones in the dolmen at Esse are
held to change continually, to have the gift of
going and coming like the Roman Penates which,

1 Cultes, iii. 365-433.

THE SACRED STONE

according to Varro, were transported from Lavinium
to Alba, but returned of their own accord to their
ancient domicile. When sacred stones are credited
with soul, i.e. with life and motion, they may be
inferred to possess the gift of going and coming, — or
as it is put regarding the stones of Callernish, Lewis,
they cannot be counted, for they are never the
same.

1 Telling it to the stones ' then is a phrase imply-
ing that certain sacred stones have souls. Elsewhere
a stone may represent the image of earth as the
common Great Mother : such, by the testimony of
Arnobius,1 was the image brought from Phrygia to
Rome, merely a small black stone rough and unhewn.
Some races (the Mexicans, the Indians of Colomba)
think that all men were once stones ; in Guatamela
they placed polished stones in the mouth of the
dying to supply a permanent abode for the soul ; in
New South Wales the blacks gave each novitiate at
manhood ceremonials a white stone or quartz crystal 2
as an accompaniment to his new name, the women
being forbidden to look at it on pain of death
(Angas's Savage Life, ii. 21). In many quarters of
the globe the decrees of fate are held to be revealed
to the seer gazing into his crystal ; higher races
have in their past had their stone of Bethel and
holy Kaaba. Tomb-stones erected for the dead chief
gave further impetus to belief in the god-stone ;
decked with flowers and garlands, to the accompani-
ment of invocations and of dancing, the way was
paved for the ceremonial cult of the idol (G. arracht),

1 Contra Gentes, vii. 49.

2 For association of a white stone with a new name, cf. Rev. ft.

2o4 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

which among the Irish Celts we meet with on the
Plain of Adoration (Mag Slecht) around Crom
Cruach, to whom they used to offer the firstlings of
every issue, and the chief scions of every clan. The
name Crom may be cognate with the Teutonic hrtim,
'soot,' and if so Crom Cruach may mean 'the black
one of the pile (heap or stack)/ As the central idol
was surrounded by twelve smaller ones in a circle, I
take it that Crom himself was on an elevated heap
in the centre. I shall return to him in treating of
sacrifice, premising here that the modern name is
Crom Dubh, i.e. Black Crom, and that the epithet
J black ' (dubh) was only added by the moderns to
make the archaic name Crom, which I infer to have
signified ' black,' intelligible to a later age. Crom
in folk tradition is said to have been accompanied by
a leannan-sicihe or fairy sweetheart, who imparted
him of her wiles as he required. He was as fleet as
the wind and as nimble as the March hare, and he
is depicted along with his two sons and their two
mastiffs as careering the country to levy tribute ;
Crom came in the rear as a sort of chariot into which
he stowed away the levies. So far he reminds one
of the Wild Huntsman of Odin. But in Irish folk-
lore the god-idol Crom Cruach or Crom Dubh has
been humanised. In Mayo story he appears as a
ruler, who had his own will in everything : u and that
was the bad will, for he was an evil disposed man,
venemous, fierce and morose." He is credited with
two sons, Teideach and Clonnach, the former a folk-
invention from a place named Poll a' t-Seididh, ' the
blowing hole,' the latter from clonn, 'a pillar, a
chimney piece' (as it is given in O'Reilly). Crom,

THE SACRED STONE 205

it is said, levied tribute on his people according to
their means : any one who refused was brought
into his presence as he sat at the fireside to pass
judgement, and thereafter the recusant was cast into
the fire.1 This seems a reminiscence of the sacrifices
and holocausts offered formerly to the god-idol. At
his death, says legend, he was devoured by gnats
and worms, and multitudes of people congregated in
honour of St. Patrick's achievement over Crom, and
were baptised at a well near hand, at Kilcummin, at
the western end of Killala Bay (Ben wee), where on
Garland Sunday the anniversary is still kept up.
The name not long ago survived in Lochaber, and
is met with in the lines

Di-Domhnaich Slat-Pailm 's ann ris tha mo stoirm,
Di-Domhnaich Crom-Dubh, plaoisgidh mi'n t-ubh,

which Nicolson2 renders: ' On Palm Sunday is my
stir ; on crooked black Sunday I'll peel the egg>'
He writes the word with the u vowel, Crum-dubh,
"apparently for ' Crom-dubh,' and is known in Ireland
as the title of the first Sunday of August, but in
Lochaber it is applied to Easter." The ^-form is
due to the genitive Cruim-duibh. But there is no
authority for taking the word to be the same as
G. crom, 'crooked, bent.' From the account we get
in the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick it was to all
appearance a stone-idol, and falls thus to be included
under the god-soul in stone, as to conception. As
to the rites more anon. It would not do to destroy
the old worship-stones (clachan aoraidk), said a

1 Liib na Caillighe (ed. Lloyd), Connradh na Gaedhilge, 1910, p. 34.
* Proverbs, p. 167.

2o6 THE WANDERINGS OF PSYCHE

Perthshire man to the Rev. Mr. Mackenzie, Ken-
more. There had been one near his own door
which was very much in the way, but he had with
great labour dug a hole into which he had let it drop
and covered it up, for it would never do to incur the
anger of the spiritual beings by breaking it up. This
was more than 30 years ago.1

1 Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot, for 1900.

CHAPTER III.

THE EARTHLY JOURNEY.

Every journey has its stages, and for the purposes
of these pages account is to be taken of the
following :

i. Lustration, or lustral rites, whether by fire, by
water, by milk or by blood.

2. Illumination, under which come premonitions,
omens, divination, inclusive of second-sight. Here
mysticism is recognised from the outset : it is so far
a testimony to the fact that all human knowledge is
in part.

3. Healing, passing in spiritual religion to salva-
tion, wherein all healing culminates. It has its pre-
shadowings in

(a) The rites that unite. Here fall the cere-
monies relating to espousals and marriage,
and some forms of pagan eucharists.

(6) The rites that avert. Here account is
taken of the evil workings of envy ; the
effects of the evil eye ; the belief that an
issue of blood may be magically stopped ;
some phases of magic and of sacrifice.

2o8 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

This is a constant element in human life,
but it assumes lower and higher forms.
Account is here taken of old elementary
rites only, such as that at Loch Mo Nair ;
those at Holy Wells, such as Holywell ; a
special instance is the pilgrimage to Lough
Derg (St. Patrick's Purgatory).
(d) Folk-medicine.
We treat in order :

1. Lustration — the rites appertaining to the pro-
gress of the pilgrim range from the cradle to the grave.
— In folk-practice probably only a few of the more
significant have survived until within recent memory.
Midwives, according to Pennant's account ( 1 8th cent.)
gave new-born babes a small spoonful of earth and
whisky as the first-food. In the Isle of Man salt
was put in the baby's mouth as soon as possible
after birth. If the child had once partaken of any
food it could not be exposed.1 Among the old mid-
wives it was a sacred practice to roast the omphalos
after it fell ofif, about the ninth day, and give it to
the child to drink, powdered and mixed with water
(Inverness-shire). This was, as it were, the child's
first eucharist. In Man, from the birth of a child
until after it was baptised, it was customary to keep
in the room a peck or wooden hoop covered with
sheep's skin, which was filled with oaten cakes and
cheese for visitors, and small pieces of cheese and
bread called blithe meat were scattered in and about
the house for the fairies.2 In the Highlands fire-
lustration was resorted to, as Martin testifies ; and
Pennant, who was a diligent inquirer, says, " It has

1 Moore, Folklore^ etc. 157. -Ibid. 156.

THE LUSTRAL RITES 209

happened that, after baptism, the father has placed
a basket, filled with bread and cheese, on the pot-
hook that impended over the fire in the middle of
the room, which the company sit around ; and the
child is thrice handed across the fire, with the design
to frustrate all attempts of evil spirits or evil eyes.
This originally seems to have been designed as a
purification. . . ." This is parallel with the old
Scottish practice of whirling a fir-candle three times
round the bed on which the mother and newly-born
child lay.1 The Bible was put under the mother's
pillow, with a piece of silk from her marriage dress,
and fire or light was carried thrice round the bed
after a birth ; this was done at Loch Eck 40 years
ago as a protection against the Fairies. Martin in
his Western Isles records that fire was also carried
morning and evening round the mother till she was
churched, and round the child till it was christened.
May one here compare the Persian practice of light-
ing a fire on the roof of a house where any one is
ill ? The purpose is to ward off any further evil,
not as Mr. Frazer thinks when he suggests ' the
intention possibly being to interpose a barrier of fire
to prevent the escape of the soul.2 In the High-
lands there existed the rite of the Leigheas Ctiairte,
passing children through a hoop of fire, described
by the late Rev. Dr. A. Stewart, Nether Lochaber,
in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland}

In the account of the Leigheas Cuairte five women
were seen: "Two of them were standing opposite

1 Rogers, Social Life in Scotland, i. 135.

-Frazer, On Certain Burial Customs, p. 84. 3 Year 1889-90.

210 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

each other, were holding a hoop vertically between
them, and the hoop all around, except where they
held it in the middle, was wrapped in something that
was burning briskly, emitting small jets of flame
and a good deal of smoke. Opposite each other, on
either side of the opening of the hoop, stood other
two engaged in handing backwards and forwards to
each other, through the centre of the hoop of fire,
a child, whose age, as I afterwards learned, was
eighteen months. The fifth woman, who was the
mother of the child, stood a little aside, earnestly
looking on. They did not notice me, and I stood
quietly viewing the scene until the child, having
been several times passed and returned again
through the fiery circle, was handed to its mother ;
and then the burning hoop was carried by the two
women that held it to a pool of the burn, into which
it was thrown. . . . The child was a weakling,
constantly clamouring for food, which it ate vora-
ciously, and yet it did not thrive . . . the child was
under the influence of an evil eye of great power ;
and nothing but that it should be subjected to the
rite I had witnessed (called in Gaelic Beannachd Na
Ctiairte, 'the Blessing of the Round or of the
Circle ') could avail to counteract the evil influence
. . . an old woman's evil eye had put the wasting
into the child {a chuir an t-seacadh san leanabh), at
the same time put the hunger into it (a chuir an

t-acras ann) The child's mother and four of the

neighbouring women having been duly initiated into
the mysteries of the Beannachd Chuairte, an iron
hoop that had once encircled the rim of a big
washing-tub was got hold of, and a straw rope

LUSTRATION BY FIRE 211

{siaman) wound round it. Here and there along
the windings of the siaman a little oil was dropped to
make it burn the brighter when it should be set on
fire." The child had to be passed and repassed
eighteen times, once for each of the eighteen moons
that represented the child's age. A bunch of bog-
myrtle was put above its bed, and not touched nor
taken down until the next crescent moon (' nuair
thainig a cheud fhas soluis mu'n cuairt') {Proceed.
Soc. Antiq. Scot. March 10, 1890).

A parallel rite is testified to from Wigtownshire,
while the late Rev. Dr. Scott of St. George's, Edin-
burgh, testifies to his remembrance of new-born
children having been passed through the fire in
Lanarkshire. Another correspondent quotes a Gaelic
verse :

Mo nighean bhoidheach an fhuilt reidh
Gur speiseil learn a ghluaiseas tu ;
Ged a robh mi tinn gu bas
Do ghradh bu leigheas cuairt' dhomh e.

Beautiful maiden of smoothest hair,

Delightful to me thine every movement ;

Even if I were sick unto death,

Thy love would be as the healing of the circle to me.

One of the commonest sayings in the Highlands
still is : cha tig olc a teine, i.e. ' no evil comes from
fire/ It is believed that getting the hearth-fire
enables a witch to spirit away all family blessing.
It is taboo to go between an epileptic and the
hearth-fire on pain of the spirit of epilepsy getting
hold of one ; by violating this prohibition one easily
caught the disease. The rite of smooring the fire
ere going to bed was reverently performed and

212 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

accompanied with prayer full of Christian associa-
tions : " I am smooring the fire, O God, as the Son
of Mary would smoor it." Swellings and sprains
were alleviated by making the sign of the cross in
soot by aid of the chimney-pot chain, or by soot
taken from the chimney ' hanging-stick, maide-
crochaidh, or ' cross-beam/ Embers of smoulder-
ing fire [dine theine) were put into a pot and carried
in circuit sun-wise around the house at bed-time to
ward off evil. Ortha nam Buadh1 speaks of the
laving of the palms in lustral low or fire (ann an Hit
nan lasair). The sacredness of fire is evidenced in
the perpetual fires kept formerly at the monasteries
of Seirkieran, Kilmainham, Inishmurray.2 Brigit
was a fire-goddess whose festival may have been the
precursor of that of the Christian St. Brigit on the day
before Candlemas. She was a goddess of the crops
as well as of fire.3 Perpetual fires were kept up at
Kildare (Cill-dara), ' the church of the oak.' The
holy fires of the Aryans were commonly kindled and
fed with oak wood, with some exceptions.4 Flint
was in all likelihood used in kindling the ' paschal '
fires which were formerly lit about Eastertide. But
the purifying fire known as teine tiginn, usually
construed as ■ fire of necessity,' through a mistaken
fancy that need in 'need-fire' means 'necessity,'
whereas it properly means ' friction,' hence ' friction-
fire,' was properly produced by friction from oak

1 A. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica.

2 Joyce's Soc.Hist. i. 335 ; Silva Gadelica, trans, by O'Grady, pp. 15,
16, 41.

3 Cf. J. G. Campbell's Witchcraft, p. 247 ; Train's Hist, and Stat.
Acct. of Isle of Man (Douglas, 1845), ii. 116 ; Solinus, xxii. 10.

4 Frazer, G. Bough, iii. 347-9 ; On the Kingship, p. 281.

LUSTRATION BY FIRE 213

beams. As the Gadhelic tei?ie-tignn is a name
unknown apparently in Ireland, I am led to think
that it maybe founded on the Norse eikinn, 'oaken,'
eik being of old the 'oak,' though now in Icelandic
it has come to mean ' tree of any kind.'

The need-fire was made in Mull by turning an
oaken wheel over nine oaken spindles from east to
west.1 In houses between the two nearest running
streams all other fires had to be extinguished.
Ramsay of Ochtertyre's account of the Teine Eiginn
is one of the oldest and the best: "The night
before, all the fires in the country were carefully
extinguished, and next morning the materials for
exciting the sacred fires were prepared. The most
primitive method seems to be that which was used
in the islands of Skye, Mull and Tiree. A well-
seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of
which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same
timber was then applied, the end of which they
fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the main-
land the machinery was different. They used a
frame of greenwood of a square form, in the centre
of which was an axle-tree. In some places three
times three persons, in others three times nine, were
required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or
wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder,
adultery, theft or other atrocious crime, it was
imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or
that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon
as any sparks were emitted by means of violent
friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows
on birch trees, and is very combustible. This fire

1 Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie*, i. 506.

214 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

had the appearance of being immediately derived
from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed
' to it. They esteemed it a preservative against
witchcraft and a sovereign remedy against malignant
diseases, both in the human species and in cattle ;
and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to
have their nature changed."

Fire-lustration is a very ancient rite. According
to Caesar the Druids held that fire and water would
in the end prevail. In the Book of Armagh a name
for the day of judgement is erddthe : " usque ad
diem erdathe apud magos, id est, iudicii diem
domini,"1 and it may possibly reflect a similar belief.
Parallel rites occur elsewhere ; for illustration I
adduce a Greek rite, the 'AfiKpiSpo/uaa ; " A ritual at
which the new-born child was solemnly carried
round the hearth-fire and named in the presence of
the kinsmen. . . . Charondas speaks of certain Sal/moves
tcrriov-xoi, powers of the sacred hearth. Sometimes a
hero or daimon might protect the gateway of the
house or city or the city-walls or the entrance to
the temple, as we hear of a ijpw 7rp6 ttv\u>v in
Thrace, of an eirireyios rjpco? and reiycxpvXa^ at Athens,
the guardian of roof and wall of KXaiKocpopos, the
'holder of the temple keys/ at Epidauros."2

Parallel conceptions may be traced in the follow-
ing: "In Sonnenberg a light must be kept constantly
burning after the birth or the witches will carry off
the child. Amongst the Albanians a fire is kept

1 Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeo-Hib. ii. 45.

2 Anthropological Essays, presented to E. B. Tylor, Oxford 1907,
p. 82. With the daimon-protector compare idea in the Faire-Chlaidh,
* the kirk-yard watch,' q.v.

LUSTRATION BY FIRE 215

constantly burning in the room for forty days after
the birth ; the mother is not allowed to leave the
house all this time, and at night she may not leave
the room ; and any one during this time who enters
the house by night is obliged to leap over a burn-
ing brand. In the Cyclades no one is allowed to
enter the house after sunset for many days after a
birth, and in modern Greece generally the woman
may not enter the church for forty days after the
birth, just as in ancient Greece she might not enter
a temple during the same period."1

"The mother never sets about any work till she
has been kirked. In the Church of Scotland there
is no ceremony on the occasion ; but the woman,
attended by some of her neighbours, goes into the
church, sometimes in service time, but oftener when
it is empty ; goes out again, surrounds it, refreshes
herself at some public-house, and then returns home.
Before this ceremony she is looked on as unclean,
never is permitted to eat with the family; nor will
any one eat of the victuals she has dressed '
{Pennant's Tour). Within my own recollection the
idea of ' uncleanness ' before the ' kirking ' was
retained.

The Manx term for the churching of women,
lostey-ckainley, lit. 'candle-burning,' points to the old
custom of keeping a consecrated candle burning in
the room where a birth took place, and 'candle-
burning ' in religious rites of later times has its roots
in primitive fire-lustration.

Next comes lustration by water or baptism.
Some might be inclined to think that Irish baitkis,

1 Frazer, On Certain Burial Customs •, p. 85".

216 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

* baptism,' is a native word ; or would hold by a
verb baitsim, ' I sprinkle/ But even if Gaelic baist,
1 baptise/ be taken as through Latin baptiso, ' I
baptise,' the lustral rite itself, there can be no
question, was known in pre-Christian times. The
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh refers to the ■ pagan
baptism' as well as other Gadhelic texts. It occurs
to me in passing that the rite (with which I have
been long familiar as practised by the old 'knee-
women ' or midwives) of roasting the imleag or
omphalos and, when ground to a powder, giving it
mixed with water to the infant to drink about the
eighth or ninth day, was a concomitant of a form of
pagan baptismal rites. Maurer, who has written on
the old heathen baptism of the Teutons, suggests
that baptism was a recognition of the child on the
part of the father whereby the infant was made an
heir ; he shows that on the eighth day, or within
the ninth day, the rite was to be performed, from
evidence in the old laws of the Visi-Goths and
Anglo-Saxons ; the Romans, too, named a female
infant on the eighth and a male on the ninth day ;
the Greeks celebrated the seventh day after birth
with rites of cleansing, gifts, sacrifices and feasts.1

Most of the old rites have left few traces. In
Pennant's time he was able to state that after
baptism the first meat that the company tastes is
crowdie, a mixture of meal and water, or meal and
ale thoroughly mixed. ' Of this every person takes
three spoonfuls.' In many parts still it is a rule to
have at least partial baptism administered, it being

1 K. Maurer, * Ueber die Wasserweihe des Germanishen ' Heiden-
thumes,' Bavarian Acad, of Sciences for 1880.

LUSTRATION BY WATER 217

held to be unlucky for the child to pass un-
christened ; when the infant can be brought to
church the rite is further proceeded with by the
priest. In the early nineteenth century it was
customary to carry the bread or bairn's piece in the
procession on the way to church, and custom pre-
scribed that the ■ piece ' was to be offered to the
first person, whether high or low, who met the child,
and it was considered unlucky l to decline the
present.'1 One who was not a cleric could ' sprinkle '
the child.

At Rome baptism was restricted to the period of
Easter, the vigil of Easter-tide to Pentecost, while
in Africa and in Ireland Epiphany was a baptismal
festival.2 A relic of this still exists in those parts of
the Highlands, e.g. Strathglass, where the Epiphany
is called Fdille Fairc, the latter word having dialec-
tally r for /in this word, hence Fdille Failc, ' festival
of laving.' The importance of water-lustration is
clear from Gadhelic having a special word, taran,
for 'the ghost of an unbaptised infant,' which was
thought of as going about wailing in distress, though
in some districts unbaptised infants were thought of
as being dipped in water at the feet of Christ in the
world unseen, — a thought charitable and sweet.
The importance of water itself is strongly evident in
the Isle of Gigha belief: " Here is a strange super-
stition for you. A parishioner told me that he was
in a house in the island after the children had gone

1 Cf. the whisky and cheese carried in processions to church by a
marriage party and offered to those met on the way ; this was etiquette
in 1875 to my knowledge, and later.

2 Hatch, Influences of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian
Church, p. 299 (where he quotes Mabillon).

218 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

to bed ; one of the children was restless in his sleep
and often sitting up, as if startled. The father
ordered the boy to be quiet, with graphic maledic-
tions, and added : * After all, I should not speak like
that to the boy, but reserve my bad language for the
minister, who put far too little water on the boy at
baptism.' He assured this parishioner — an I leach
(I slay-man) — that this was always the result of using
little water."1

In the Proceedings of the Synod of Cashed a.d.
i 1 72, Benedict of Peterborough mentions for Ireland
the following curious facts, which show that the
father, in accordance with old custom, could immerse
the child thrice in water immediately after birth, or,
in the case of a rich man's child, thrice in milk.
Thus we could perhaps speak of a rite of milk-
baptism : "In illo autem concilio statuerunt, et
auctoritate summi pontificis praeceperunt, pueros
in ecclesia baptizari, In nomine Patris et Filii et
Spiritus Sancti, et hoc a sacerdotibus fieri prae-
ceperunt. Mos enim prius erat per diversa loca
Hiberniae, quod statim cum puer nasceretur, pater
ipsius vel quilibet alius eum ter mergeret in aqua.
Et si divitis filius esset, ter mergeret in lacte."2

The mention of the milk reminds of the rite after
Christian baptism at Rome on Easter eve in the
ninth century : " For the newly-baptised the chalice
is filled, not with wine but with milk and honey, that
they may understand . . . that they have entered
already upon the promised land. And there was

1 Letter from Rev. D. Macfarlane, the present minister.

2 Quoted in Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church,
p. 67.

LUSTRATION BY MILK 219

one more symbolical rite in that early Easter Sacra-
ment, the mention of which is often suppressed, — a
lamb was offered on the altar, afterwards cakes in
the shape of a lamb. It was simply the ritual which
we have seen in the mysteries."1

Of ceremonies connected with weaning, the follow-
ing is of interest. At Carrickfergus it was formerly
the custom for mothers, when giving their child the
breast for the last time, to put an egg in its hand
and sit on the threshold of the altar door with a lee
on each side ; this ceremony was usually done on
Sunday.

In the Highlands (Uist) it is held that no person
should sleep in a house without water in it, and least
of all should a house where there is a little child be
without water. In a house of this kind the slender
one of the green coat was seen washing the child in
a basin of milk.2 And water is efficacious against
the fairies. In a folk-tale the fairies are pictured
as calling at the door on a 'cake' to come out
to them : the inmates threw water on the cake,
and it replied: 'I can't go, I am undone.'3 In
Tiree, Gregorson Campbell says 4 it was customary
in many places to place a drink of water beside the
corpse previous to the funeral, in case the dead
should return.

Baptism is one of the most universal forms of

Duchesne's Origins, quoting Sy nodus Patricii, ii. 19; Victor
Vitensis, Hist. Persec. Vandal, ii. 47.

2Te chaol a' chot uaine a' nigheadh a phaisde ann am miosar
bhainne.

3 Chan urrainn domh ; tha mi air mo mhiapadh.

4 Witchcraft and Second-Sight, p. 173.

220 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

lustration : ' the pagan baptism,' referred to in the
eleventh century text of the Wars of the Gaedhil
and the Gall, need not surprise us.

Blood forms the transition between water-lustration
and sacrifice. Its use in the cure of epilepsy may
suffice here. I take it from the Rev. K. Macdonald's
Social and Religious Life in the Highlands (pp.
29 ff.) : " If an epileptic patient had been so fortunate
as to be observed the first time he had a fit, he might
be cured by the sacrifice of a black cock. This mode
of healing is still resorted to. The cock is to be
caught at once and split down in the middle. Then
it is wrapped in its warm blood on the patient's head.
When it cools it is removed and buried, and the
affliction is supposed to be buried along with it. In
the case of herpes or skin diseases of that class, the
blood of a black cock without a white feather, or
a white cock without a black feather, is recommended
as a remedy. The blood of a black cat is used to
check erysipelas." In Ireland also the blood of a
black cat is used as a cure for the same complaint
(teine-dhiadh)} In West Ross the blood of a black
cock or of a black cat, or the blood of a male Munro,
is a recognised cure for teine-De*, St. Anthony's Fire
or 'shingles.'2 Blood taken from the patient's own
leg and given him to drink was a part of the cure
quite recently in Lewis.3

2. Illumination. — It embraces every form of vision
and of magic knowledge. From being adepts in the
magic arts, the wise man of old received the name

1 An Lochrann, Tralee, 1910, Bk. iii. No. 7.

2 Trans. Gael. Soc. Inv. 26, 284.

3 v. Appendix to my Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland.

ILLUMINATION 221

of Druid, i.e. *dru-vid, 'very knowing, very wise.'1
This species of attempted knowledge ranges from
the premonition (meanmuin) to various kinds of
omens (nianadh, tuar, glaini) and the arts of divina-
tion (fiosachd, faistneachd, tairngireachd, fath-fzth).
The terms fath-fith or fit h- fat h was " applied to the
occult power which rendered a person invisible to
mortal eyes and which transformed one object into
another."2 Dr. Joyce3 has equated this with the
fded-fiada associated with St. Patrick when he and
his companions were transformed into deer on their
way to Tara.

Vision in folk-belief may embrace the seeing of
the semblance or form (riochd) of the departed by
one who cannot recognise them, not having known
them when alive. One of the instances in point is
connected with the old manse of Lairg. That this
house was haunted was long believed by the people
in the parish to my own knowledge ; nor is the belief
yet dead. The Rev. Thomas Mackay, minister of
Lairg, died in 1803. A son of a successor, the late
Rev. A. G. MacGillivray, a most excellent man
whom I warmly remember, tells the story in a lecture
appended to William Mackay s Narrative of the
Shipwreck of the ' Juno,1* of which Byron says it is
one of the narratives in which poetry must be content

1 This derivation by Thurneysen may be upheld, but the name may
have been extended also to the 'wise men' of the pre-Celtic peoples
■who brought over their own rites when the incorporation of the various
races took place.

2 Carmina Gadelica, ii. p. 22, where a specimen of this incantation is
.given.

3 Social History of Ireland, i. 386.

4 Reprint for the Clan Mackay Society, 1 892, p. 88.

222 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

to yield the palm to prose. MacGillivray, with whose
father's * family the incident is connected, writes :
" ... it was firmly believed in our parish that Mr.
Thomas Mackay was once seen, twenty-three years,
after his death, in the old manse. Of course the
story must have some satisfactory explanation, but
it was not explained in my time. On a fine summer
day, in 1826, two young girls were sitting in the
manse dining-room ; they heard a step advancing to
the door, the door opened, and there stood a thin
venerable old man, dressed in black, with knee
breeches and buckles, black silk stockings, and shoes
with buckles. He looked closely all round the room,
at them, and then walked out. One of the girls ran
upstairs and told the minister then in the manse that
a very old minister had come in and was looking for
him. The minister hurried down and looked for his
visitor, but in vain ; he could nowhere be found. The
manse is so placed that every object can be seen for
a quarter of a mile around, but not a trace of the
visitor was visible. The old people who heard the
girls describe the old man they had seen, declared
that they recognised Mr. Thomas Mackay from their
description. Ten or twelve years thereafter grand-
daughters of Mr. Mackay came to reside in the
parish. One of the young girls, by that time grown
a woman, said to one of these ladies, ' Oh ! how like
you are to your grandfather " ; to which the other
replied, ' So the old people tell me, but how can you
know that, for he died before you were born ? ■ The
other coloured and got confused, and could give no
reply. She had recognised the lady's resemblance

JThe Rev. Duncan MacGillivray succeeded in 1817.

DIVINATION BY FRITH 223

to the old minister who had appeared to her in the

manse.

I cannot say how the truth may be,
I say the tale as 'twas told to me. "

When it is the evil eye that has fallen on a creature,
the person who makes the snaithlean, or magic
1 thread,' for its cure is seized with a fit of yawning.
It is by the frith that those who cure the evil eye
tell whether it be the eye of a male or female that
has done the harm1 (Benbecula). The longer the
evil eye has lain on a creature unobserved, the longer
it takes to be cured, and the sicker the person,
becomes who makes the snailhlein.

In making the frith some enjoin the reciting of
the formula through the hand loosely closed. A
formula used in Benbecula is :

Mise do I a mack orra ( = air do) shlighe-sa, Dhi\
Dia romham, Dia *m dheaghaidh Js Dia "m luirg ! An
t-eolas rinn Moire dha 'mac, she'id Brighd 'romh bds
(glaze). Fiosfirinnegunfhiosbre'ige; mar a fhuair
ise gum faze mise samhladh air an rud a tha mi
fhe'in ag zarraidh, i.e. ' I am going out on thy path,
O God ! God be before me, God be behind me,
God be in my footsteps. The charm which Mary
(the Virgin) made for her Son, Brigit blew through
her palms, — knowledge of truth and no lie. As she
found, may I see the likeness of what I myself
am seeking.' The use of the frith or horoscope is
not at all extinct, as declared by a young woman
who was present, and who actually asked the frith
to be made so that information might be got as to

1 There is a rite of blessing oneself when making the/r)M if a woman
be seen, — she being the omen of some untoward event or other.

224 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

the state of health of a person at some distance who
was ill. The woman who made the frith said
after making it that she would rather say the woman
was dead. The woman was actually dead at the
time, so my authority was informed.

It is not right for a woman to try and kindle the
fire by fanning it with the skirt of her dress. The
reason is that when Our Lord was going to be nailed
to the Cross, and the nails were being got ready,
that the smith's bellows refused to work, and the
smith's daughter fanned the fire with her skirt.

The Omen (Manadk) forms the transition to
what it is felt proper to do, and is thus the initial
and rudimentary stage of illumination. It is a
subjective sort of oracle. Early Irish mana, 'omen,'
is cognate with Latin moneo, Old English manian,
'warn.' Examples are : " When one hears piping in
the ears it is recommended to say a prayer for the
dead." Others say : " May it be well for us and
our friends; if thou it be who didst hear it, it will
not be thou who wilt weep."1 For this piping is a
sign of somebody dying at the time.

It was an omen of ill-luck to hear the cuckoo on
its first return without having broken one's fast,2 or
to see a lamb with its back towards one if it were
seen for the first time for the season.

If a cat mewed for flesh meat it was an omen of
the death of a cow, and to avert the prediction
one said : " With your wanting (the meat of an
animal), misfortune take thee ! May it be thine

1 Gum bu slan sin oirn-ne is air ar daoine !
Mas tu chuala cha tu chaoineas.

2 See under Bird-Soul.

OMENS 225

own hide that will be the first hide to go on the
roof-spar."1

In the rite of 'averting/ water is taken from a
boundary stream, and put into a vessel in which is
a silver coin. The water is thrown over the beast.
If the coin adheres to the bottom of the vessel it is
taken as an omen that the evil eye was at work.

Another word for omen is tuar, used in that
sense by Keating, and surviving in the Highland
proverb: Cha do chuir gual chuige nach do chuir
tuar thairis, i.e. none ever set shoulder to that did
not overcome foreboding. It is thus specially some-
thing foreboding of evil. Among such may be put
the cry of a cuckoo heard from a house-top or
chimney, as a presage of death to one of the
inmates within the year. Mr. Forbes notes for
some district in Ireland that a cuckoo always
appears to a certain family before a death in that
family. He quotes the late Rev. Dr. Stewart of
Nether Lochaber as to a euphemistic way of
speaking of the cuckoo as the 'grey bird of May-
tide ' {tan glas a Cke'itein), it being discreet not to
speak of it by its proper name. " In the popular
imagination so connected with fairyland was the
cuckoo that the very name was in a sense taboo."2
The howling of the house dog at night is usually
held to be an omen of a funeral that will soon pass
by. In Breadalbane a moving ball of fire or a
moving light (gealbkan) is a precursor of a funeral.3

1 Le d5 iarraidh, dosgadh ort !

Gur e do sheice fhdin a chiad sheic a the*id air an sparr.
3 Forbes, Gaelic Names of Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Insects and Reptiles,
f>. 263.

3 Gaelic Soc. Inv. Trans. 26, 126 and 42.

226 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

This corresponds to the dreag, driug of other parts.
In Lochbroom a cat washing its face is an omen
of its soon getting either fish or flesh: as there is
a danger of its fulfilment being brought about
through the death by mishap of cattle or sheep,
the cat is given a cuff to stop it and avert the
evil.1 To be suddenty seized by peculiar sensations
of horror at certain places may be an omen of one
having drowned one's self there.2 A white bird
flapping its wings towards a burying ground is a
precursor of a corpse and an omen of death.3 An
omen of calamity is known as glaim? a peculiar
sound in the ear, a howling ; it has been taken as
cognate with the German klageny ' weep, complain ' :
the root idea is ' make moan/

If a particle of food get into the wind-pipe it is
polite to say : Deiseal, i.e. ■ sun-ways or right ! it is
not grudging it that I am to thee.'5

When going from home with a mare at early
morning it is a good omen if one put the right foot
over and around the beast's head in name of the
Father, and then make the sign of the Cross on
one's self, which ensures that no witch or evil spirit
can come nigh. It was said of a country carrier who
did so: R. M. never went from home without putting
his left foot over his mare's head in the name of the
Father, and making the sign of the Cross of Christ
on himself, and then no wizard nor any evil spirit
could come nigh him.6

xGall. Soc. Inv. Trans. 265. 2 lb. 292-3. 3 lb. 25, 127.

*I6. 25, 130. 6 Chan ann ga mhaoidheadh ort ati mi.

6Cha deach' R — M — riamh o'n tigh leis an lair aige, gun a chas
dheas chur timchioll a ceann an ainm an Athar is crois Chriosda chur

OMENS 227

Prognostications were made from the 'first-foot':1
to meet a woman with red hair was unlucky; a beast,
man or thing unexpectedly encountered on stepping
out of doors or on setting out on a journey betokened
weal or woe. On entering a new abode it was un-
lucky to find a dead crow before one on the hearth-
stone. Out of ill-will it has been known to have
been put in the pulpit of a vacant parish.

Some stones or crystals have associations with
curative magical agencies : such are the Ardvoirlich
Charm, Barbreck's Stone, the Loch Mo Nair Stone,
and the varieties of ' witch ' stones one has known
of; others are associated with clairvoyance and
divination, such as Cinneach Odhar's Stone ; a few
may be specially remarkable as having been omens
of success : the merits imputed to such have influ-
enced human lives, and their story belongs to local
history. An instance of a stone of good omen is
that of Clack Na Brataich, i.e. the Banner Stone of
the Clan Robertson. Its story as told by Mr. D.
Robertson 2 is as follows :

" In joining the muster of St. Ninians under King
Robert Bruce, previous to the Battle of Bannock-
burn, Donnachadh Reamhar encamped with his men
on their march to the rendezvous. On pulling up
the standard pole out of the ground one morning
before marching off, the chief observed something
glittering in a clod of earth which adhered to the
end of the staff. He immediately plucked it out,

air ; 's cha robh buitseach no droch spiorad sam bith a b'urrainn
thighinn 'na choir.

1 Comh-dhalaiche ; German, A?i-gang ; L. primitiae.

2 A Brief Account of the Clan Donnachie^ with Notes on its History
and Traditions.

228 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

and there being something apparently fateful in such
an incident occurring under such circumstances, he
retained it in his own possession after holding it up
to his followers, as a happy omen of success in the
fortunes of their expedition.

" It became associated with the glorious victory of
Bannockburn, and thenceforth was accepted by the
clan as its Stone of Destiny or Palladium. It has
always been carried by the chief on his person when
the clan mustered for war or foray, and its various
changes of hue were consulted as to the result of
the coming strife.

"It was carried bv ■ The Tutor' when in command
of Clan Donnachaidh under the great Montrose,
and the Poet Chief carried it gallantly at the head
of 500 of his men at Sheriffmuir. On this occasion
he, as his ancestors had done before him, consulted
the oracle, arid observed for the first time an exten-
sive flaw or crack in it. This was accepted as an
adverse omen, inasmuch as the Stuart cause was for
the time crushed, and from this time, it has been
held, dates the decline of the power and influence
of the clan.

" But besides being regarded merely as a warlike
emblem, the ' Clach na BrataicrT was also employed
as a charm-stone against sickness. It was, after a
short preliminary prayer, dipped in water by the
chief, who then with his own hands distributed the
water thus qualified to the applicants for it. In this
connection it was used by the grandfather of the
present chief, in whose possession it now of course
remains. For a time it was deposited by him in the
museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

THE ROBERTSONS' BANNER STONE 229

for the inspection of the public, but serious warnings
were addressed to him as to the fatality which might
result.

" In form it is a ball of clear rock crystal, in
appearance like glass, two inches in diameter, and
has been supposed to be a Druidical beryl. It may,
however, quite as probably be one of those crystal
balls which have from time to time been unearthed
from ancient graves in the country, and which are
said to be the abodes of good or evil spirits, or
amulets against sickness or the sword. These
symbols were usually carried on the person of the
chief, attached to his girdle or suspended from his
helmet."

The ancient rite of divination by dream was once
regarded as in the last resort a reasonable and proper
method of ascertaining the person appropriate to be
king. We read in the Sick-Bed of Cuchulainn of a
1 bull-feast ' being made the occasion of superinducing
such a dream. "It is thus that the bull-feast was
wont to be made, viz., a white bull was killed and a
man partook to his full of its flesh and juice, and
slept under that satiety while a spell of truth was
chaunted over him by four druids, and in vision
there would be divined by him the semblance of the
man who would be made king there from his form
and description and the manner of work which
was performed. The man woke up from his sleep
and related his vision. . . .ni Lugaidh of the Red
Stripes, the pupil of Cuchulainn, who was then
lying ill, was so recognised and proclaimed monarch
of Ireland.

1 For the original see Windisch's Irische Textey i. 213.

230 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

In the Sack of Da Dergds Hostel1 we read that
Conaire was thus elected. Though really begotten
by a supernatural bird-man, he was regarded as the
son of his predecessor Eterscele. But this does not
seem to have given him any title to succeed. A
bull-feast was accordingly given ; and the bull-
feaster in his sleep at the end of the night beheld a
man stark-naked passing along the road of Tara
with a stone in his sling. Warned and counselled
by his bird relatives, Conaire fulfilled these require-
ments. He found three kings (doubtless from among
the under-kings of Ireland) awaiting him with royal
raiment to clothe his nakedness, and a chariot to
convey him to Tara. It was a disappointment to
the folk of Tara to find that their bull-feast and
their spell of truth chanted over the feaster had
resulted in the selection of a beardless lad. But he
convinced them that he was the true successor, and
was admitted to the kingship.

Divination in later times takes various forms,
chief of which of old was (slinneineachd) the reading
of omens in shoulder-blades. About 40 years ago
the shoulder-blade of a bear (math-ghamhuin) took
in belief a foremost place, but as this could not be
got, that of a fox or sheep might be used. X. Y.,
the wife of L. C. Z., who was credited with the
gift of stopping blood by a spell, lost one of her
young boys. He was missed, and though searched
for, he could not be found. G. P., a man notable in
the line of finding any dead bodies, failed. She then
betook her to a wise man who could divine by reading

1 Orgain Brudne Da Dergae, a text of about the end of the eighth
century.

SCAPULIMANTIA 231

the omens on the shoulder-blades of a bear.1 He

divined and told her to walk to a certain part of the

hill which stretched away from her house ; he

described certain stones near to which the body

was to be found. She went thither ; found her

boy as a heap of bones ; she carried them home and

had them buried. This falls under the scapulimantia

of Grimm,2 and is met with among many races.

A kindred rite survives in the reading of one's

fate as to marriage in the ' merry thought ' or

breast-bone of a fowl. One's vision of the future

was widened by prognostications of all sorts by the

seeing of wraiths and the barking of dogs before

funerals, by the phenomena of second-sight and of

phantom-funerals and death-lights. Special honour

was accorded to any traces of the presence of St.

Brigit on Candlemas Eve. This belief was until

recently held in Arisaig. It existed, as we learn

from Moore, in the Isle of Man, and Martin3 writes :

4 'The mistress and servants of each family take a

sheaf of oats and dress it up in woman's apparel, put

it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it, and

this they call Briid's bed, and then the mistress and

servants cry three times : \ Briid is come, Briid is

welcome/ This they do just before going to bed,

and when they rise in the morning, they look among

the ashes expecting to see the impression of Briid's

club there, which if they do they reckon it a true

presage of a good crop and a prosperous year,

and the contrary they take as an ill omen."

Gregorson Campbell has a section dealing with

1 Duine coir a leughadh slinneagan a' mhathghamhna.

2 Teut. Myth. ed. Stallybrass, 1 1 13. s Western Isles, 1 19.

232 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Premonitions and Divination (Fiosachd) : for his
instances suffice it to refer to his book.1 He gives
prophecies attributed to the Lady of Lawers and to
Coinneach Odhar, ' whose name is hardly known in
Argyllshire.' Consequently he only devotes a page
to him, in which we learn that Kenneth acquired his
prophetic gift from a stone found in a raven's nest-
The variants of Kenneth's legend are instructive.

The Inverness-shire tradition of Coinneach Odhar
takes us back to the birth of the seer. Here we
have a story with so strong a resemblance to that of
Brian as to show that the tale belongs to a remote
period. If I take the Skye tradition there is evidence
of interest. " We in Bracadale, Duirinish, never
heard that Coinneach Odhar was a Mackenzie, or
that his death took place at so recent a date as the
seventeenth century, That could not have been.
We never heard of the manner of his death. The
historian Mackenzie mixed the legend of the original
Coinneach with the true fact as to the cruel death of
a certain Kenneth who was possessed of clairvoyant
faculties and who was buried below the town of
Fortrose." So states Miss Fanny Tolmie, a lady of
rare talent and exceptional knowledge of Skye and
its traditions. Miss Tolmie's account is as follows :

" On a Hallowe'en the people of Boisdale in South
Uist were assembling, according to long-established
custom, to spend some hours together in mirth and
dance. There was a cattle-fold in the neighbourhood
which was always watched by night, and on this
occasion the duty of guarding it devolved on two
young women, who were vexed that they should

1 Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands, p. 258.

DIVINATION BY STONES OR CRYSTALS 235

thus be excluded from participating in the general
enjoyment. Casting in their minds how they might
find a substitute, they bethought them of an elderly
maid who lived in a cottage at no distance from the
fold, which in the remote past had been a burying-
ground, and probably was of pre-Christian date.
The woman acceded kindly to their request, and
repaired to her watching station with her distaff in
her hand, where she sat beside a fire for a while, —
spinning peacefully. There were some graves close
to where she was sitting, and about midnight she
was astonished and awe-stricken to see them moving
and heaving and forms emerging from them and
passing out of sight in all directions, north, south,
east and west. Venturing to approach one of these
open graves which seemed larger than the rest, she
laid her distaff across the opening, waiting to see
the result of this action. Before long the spectres
began to return one by one, and every one lay
down in his own place while the sod became firm
and green over the grave as it had been before.

" Last of all arrived the occupant of the largest
grave, who seemed to have had a longer way to go,
and who, seeing the distaff, exclaimed to the woman :
1 Why dost thou hinder me from lying down in
peace?' 'First tell me,' she replied, 'who thou
art, where thou hast been, and what is to be my
fate, and then I will allow thee return once more to
thy resting-place.' He answered : ' I was a warrior
from Lochlinn and, after having been wrecked and
drowned, my body was washed ashore in Boisdale.
The corpse of one of my companions, whose name
was Til, was found on the west coast of Skye, at a

234 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

place which has been named after him, Poll' til. It
is permitted to us on Hallowe'en to visit our native
lands, and I have just been to Lochlinn for an hour.
This is what in the fulness of time shall happen to
thee : though no longer young, thou shalt bear a son
who will be a prophet.' Then raising the distaff,
the warrior lay down, and the grave closed over him.
When the elderly woman gave birth to a son, there
was great wonder in the land. She named him
Coinneach, in addition to which name, because of his
sallow complexion, he received the surname oiOdhar.
Coinneach Odhar's name is still well known all over
the Highlands and Hebridean Isles, and several
districts claim to have given him birth. He received
the blue stone of prophecy from the Maighdeann
Shidhe or Banshee, with the injunction that he was
never to give it to any one. He was once pursued
by a wicked person, who wished to wrest from him
the precious stone, as he was walking near Loch
Ness. Fearful of being overcome, he flung the
stone into the lake, crying that a pike (geadas) wTould
swallow it, and that in after times it would be found
again by a man who would have four and twenty
fingers and toes, and two navels, — who would also
with it receive the prophetic power.

"Some prophecies attributed to him in Skye are :

" Tribesmen will cross over linns and will leave
this isle a black isle of foreigners.

"The folks of the white coats, and those of the
red-coats in Rome will meet in Baileshear.

" Six oarsmen will bring every Macleod in the
country around Gob-an-t-snoid, beyond Dunvegan
Head.

DIVINATION BY STONES OR CRYSTALS 235

M In the battle the ravens will drink their fill
from the stone of Ard Uige, and from a stone in
Glendale.

M St. Columba's stone in Snizort churchyard will
turn right about."

In Ireland, Brian of the saga appears in Red
Brian Carabine 's Prophecy, which gives the title to
a collection of much merit we owe to Mr. Michael O
Tiomanaidhe.1 He is there pictured as having had
his abode at Fal Ruadh, a village in Erris, by the sea-
side ; a decent man who at first did not possess the
prophetic gift which was bestowed on him about
1648. At a rent collection he had gone surety for a
poor widow and paid on her behalf, whereby he
received the divine favour, — the woman having
taken God to witness that she would pay on such
and such a day. M I like to have another (to give
surety) in company with God," said the lord of the
land. Crossing a hill on his way home, what
should happen but that Brian fell asleep for he knew
not how long. He had a dream, and it was told
him in vision that what he would find in the right
sleeve of his coat he was to carefully put by, without
letting wife nor child nor any one have a sight of it
save himself alone. It was a sparkling jewel, which
clearly revealed to him the future, both good and
evil ; a magic stone of prophecy which shone with
resplendent lustre. Numerous are the prophecies
ascribed him ; they are of a nature parallel to those
of the Highland Coinneach Odhar, Dun Kenneth.
At last his wife's curiosity was aroused, and one day,

1 Targaireacht Bhriain Ruaidh Ui Chearbhdin. Dublin : Gill & Son,
1906.

236 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

as she saw him gazing at the magic stone, she came
behind him, and what portion of the crystal her eye
fell on became black as coal and shone no more.
He has the faculty of foreseeing the approach of
death in his own case and in that of others. One
day, while dictating his visions to his son, a poor
woman entered, and she was scornfully rebuked by
the busy scribe. "List to her," quoth Brian, " for
some of thine own bodily members will perish seven
years before thyself." And true this proved to be,
for the son lost a finger which was buried in earth.
But when this fore- warning was foretold to Brian's
son, he angrily cast the prophetic record into the
fire. The first portion had already been thrown
into a pool, and thus the written prophecies of Brian
perished. Naturally, what survives has come down
by word of mouth, and forms the subject of fireside
entertainments in West Ireland, in the discourses of
William Fleming in Leth-ardan ; of Seamus Mac
Enri, Inish Bigil ; of Seaghan O Conway, Dubh-
Thuma ; all of which is duly recorded in Michael
Timony's narrative. The story of the loss of the
written prophecy is similar to a tale told me at Loch
Arkaig of how Ossian's works and the history of the
Feinne have for the most part perished, having been
cast into the fire in his anger by St. Patrick. He
found them to be mostly lies ; but his daughter
rescued some !

The legend of Brian the wizard-hermit much
resembles in essentials what is told in Highland
legend of Coinneach Odhar (Sallow or Dun Kenneth),
whose legend does not all fit in with so modern a
date as that of the Kenneth on whom Lady Sea-

DUN KENNETH 237

forth wreaked her vengeance for his prophecies. It
seems to have been taken as fact that a certain un-
fortunate crystal gazer, possessed of what were held
to be clairvoyant faculties, suffered at the hands of
the Lady Mackenzie of Seaforth, who is associated
with the sad fate of Coinneach Odhar, the Brahan
seer, whose prophecies were published in a second
edition at Inverness in 1878 by the late Mr.
Alexander Mackenzie, and re-printed some years
ago with a preface by Mr. Andrew Lang. The
material, however, was collected by the late Mr.
A. B. MacLennan1 and forwarded to the editor of
the Celtic Magazine for insertion. This gives the
Ross-shire version. When the old legend got mixed
up with a later personality on the Mackenzie of
Seaforth's estates, it was natural that his birth should
be located at Baile-na-Cille, Uig, Lewis. While his
mother one evening was tending cattle in a summer
shieling on a ridge called Cnoc-eothail, overlooking
the burying ground of Baile-na-Cille (i.e. Kirk-ton),
she saw, says the legend, about the still hour of mid-
night, the whole of the graves in the churchyard
opening and a vast multitude of people of every age,
from the newly-born babe to the gray-haired sage,
rising from their graves, and going away in every
conceivable direction. In an hour they began to
return, and were all soon after back in their graves,
which closed upon them as before. But, on scanning
the burying-ground more closely, Kenneth's mother
observed one grave, near the side, still open. Being
a courageous woman, she determined to ascertain the

*His name is refered to on pages 9, 13, 19, 45, 55, 80 of the 1878
edition ; at the foot of page 3, a whole passage is omitted.

238 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

cause of this singular circumstance, so hastening
to the grave, and placing her cuigeal or * distaff"
athwart its mouth (for she had heard it said that the
spirit could not enter the grave again while that
instrument was upon it), she watched the result.
She had not to wait long, for in a minute or two she
noticed a fair lady coming in the direction of the
churchyard, rushing through the air from the north.
On her arrival, the fair one addressed her thus —
" Lift thy distaff from off my grave, and let me
enter my dwelling of the dead." "I shall do so/'
answered the other, " when you explain to me what
detained you so long after your neighbours." " That
you shall soon hear," the ghost replied ; " my journey
was much longer than theirs — I had to go all the
way to Norway." She then addressed her: " I am
a daughter of the King of Norway, I was drowned
while bathing in that country ; my body was found
on the beach close to where we now stand, and I
was interred in this grave. In remembrance of me,
and as a small reward for your intrepidity and
courage, I shall possess you of a valuable secret —
go and find in yonder lake a small round blue stone,
which give to your son, Kenneth, who by it shall
reveal future events." She did as requested, found
the stone, and gave it to her son, Kenneth. No
sooner had he thus received the gift of divination
than his fame spread far and wide. Being born
on the lands of Seaforth, he was more associated
with that family than with any other in the country,
and he latterly removed to the neighbourhood of
Loch Ussie, on the Brahan estate.1

1 Prophecies of the Brahan Seer, pp. 4-5 ; cf. 1878 cd.

THE BRAHAN SEER: SECOND SIGHT 239

Tradition associated this Loch with his death. For
having at a gathering at Brahan Castle, legend says,
given expression to some remarks displeasing to Lady
Seaforth and others, his punishment was determined
on. Having no way of escape, he applied his magic
white stone to his eye, uttered the well-known pro-
phetic curse: " I see into the far future, and I read
the doom of the race of my oppressor. The long
descended line of Seaforth will, ere many generations
have passed, end in extinction and in sorrow. I see
a chief, the last of his house, both deaf and dumb.
He will be the father of four fair sons, all of whom
he will follow to the tomb. He will live care-worn
and die mourning, knowing that the honours of his
line are to be extinguished for ever, and that no
future chief of the Mackenzies shall bear rule at
Brahan or in Kintail. After lamenting over the
last and most promising of his sons, he himself shall
sink into the grave, and the remnant of his posses-
sions shall be inherited by a white-coifed (or white-
hooded) lassie from the East, and she is to kill her
sister. And as a sign by which it may be known
that these things are coming to pass, there shall be
four great lairds in the days of the last deaf and
dumb Seaforth — Gairloch, Chisholm, Grant, and
Raasay, — of whom one shall be bucktoothed, another
hair-lipped, another half-witted, and the fourth a
stammerer. Chiefs distinguished by these personal
marks shall be the allies and neighbours of the last
Seaforth ; and when he looks round and sees them,
he may know that his sons are doomed to death,
that his broad lands shall pass away to the stranger,
and that his race shall come to an end."

240 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

The prediction ended, he threw the white stone
into the loch, declaring that the finder thereof would
be similarly gifted. Another version has it that he
then threw the stone into a cow's foot-mark, which
was full of water, declaring that a child would be
born with two navels, or, as some say, with four
thumbs and six toes, who would in course of time
discover it inside a pike, and who would then be
gifted with the seer's power. " As it was the pur-
pose of his pursuers to obtain possession of this
wonderful stone, as well as of the prophet's person,
search was eagerly made for it in the muddy waters
in the footprint, when, lo ! it was found that more
water was copiously oozing from the boggy ground
around, and rapidly forming a considerable lake,
that effectually concealed the much-coveted stone.
The waters steadily increased, and the result, as the
story goes, was the formation of Loch Ussie. The
poor prophet was then taken to Chanonry Point,
where the stern arm of ecclesiastical authority, with
unrelenting severity, burnt him to death in a tar-
barrel for witchcraft."1

His attainment of the seer's gift is invariably
connected with this stone. He got it, says one
version, as he was out on the hill cutting peats.
His mistress, a farmer's wife, greatly annoyed at
his seeing-gift, determined to poison the food which
was to be sent to him. It was somewhat late in
arriving, and, exhausted, it is said that "he lay down
on the heath and fell into a heavy slumber. In this
position he was suddenly awakened by feeling some-
thing cold in his breast, which on examination he

1 Prophecies, pp. 78-79.

THE BRAHAN SEER: SECOND SIGHT 241

found to be a small white stone, with a hole through
the centre. He looked through it, when a vision
appeared to him, which revealed the treachery and
diabolical intention of his mistress. To test the
truth of the vision, he gave the dinner intended for
himself to his faithful collie; the poor brute writhed
and died soon after in the greatest agony."1

Another variant is that, resting his head upon a
little knoll, he waited the arrival of his wife with his
dinner, whereupon he fell asleep. On awaking he
felt something hard under his head, and, examining
the cause of the uneasiness, discovered a small
round stone with a hole through the middle. He
picked it up, and looking through it he saw, by the
aid of this prophetic stone, that his wife was coming
to him with a dinner consisting of sowans and milk,
polluted though, unknown to her, in a manner
which, as well as several other particulars connected
with it, we forbear to mention. But Coinneach found
that, though this stone was the means by which a
supernatural power had been conferred upon him,
it had, as its very first application, deprived him of
the sight of that eye with which he looked through
it, and he continued ever afterwards cam, or blind
of an eye.2 Kenneth's prophecies vary in different
parts of the Highlands; some of them may have
touches in common with those credited to Thomas
the Rhymer, whose legend, however, has elements
that go back on native folk belief of the pre-
mediaeval age. This finds confirmation in that the
death of the Kenneth said to have been burnt at
Chanonry is placed under the third Earl of Sea-

1 Prophecies, p. 6. 2 lb. p. 7.

242 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

forth, who was born in 1635. But Mr. W. M.
Mackenzie has found in a Commission against witch-
craft, issued in Ross-shire in 1577, a reference to
Coinneach Odhar as the head of a school of witch-
craft even then.

Coinneach's legend is essentially the same as the
Irish one of Red Brian Carabine, but it is in con-
tinuous development. In a modern Lewis poem of
seventy quatrains, which is in Mr. J. N. Macleod's
still unpublished collection, there is a different
version of the getting of the stone. Coinneach
is depicted as on the strand, when a lady appears
in the form of a light, and tells her story. After
the light turns into a maiden, she declares herself as
Gradhag, daughter of King Swaran of the North.
Arna, priest of Odin, was a keen seer, and possessed
of a Stone of Virtues, prepared by Odin himself.
The king having ordered the priest to be shot with
an arrow, the maiden Gradhag (Dear One) inter-
vened, and saved the priest's life, for which she got
the prophetic stone. Then she is pictured as having
seen Diarmuid and the Fianna in vision, and seized
by a desire to come to Alba, whereupon Swaran
determines on invading Eire and on conquering
Finn. The lady was shipwrecked on the way, and
the stone hidden in the sand at a spot which her
wraith points out. Whereupon she changes her
human form to a gleam of light, which twinkled
thrice, and then vanished. Kenneth dug at the spot
and found the jewel, which gold could not buy ;
such were its virtues.

But Illumination has its widest popular develop-
ment apart from Stones of Virtue, and under the

THE BRAHAN SEER: SECOND SIGHT 243

category of second-sight (an da shealladh, i.e. the
two sights), which has a literature of its own.1
Under peculiar psychic conditions the reproductive
imagination, working upon memory images, trans-
forms what might remain as ' conjecture ' into vision.
It takes on the aspect of 'first sight' proper, as
when one has a vision of a person absolutely strange
to one, and with such vividness that one recognises
what answers to all the foreseen details in actual life
afterwards. Parallel to this is the case of the
coming of strangers being interpreted from a pre-
monition or warning [tarmac hduinn), such as sounds
from the opening of presses, or other articles ; as
also the seeing of forms, which one recognises after-
wards on the arrival of strangers whose 'doubles,'
it is thought, must have manifested themselves
beforehand. This is the so-called phenomenon of
apparent double presence. The following incident,
of which the scene is in Sutherland, will suffice to
illustrate this phantasy or vision proper :

" One evening a crofter was sitting outside his
cottage door, when he saw a stranger coming along
the high road towards the house. He watched the
man for some minutes till, leaving the main road, the
traveller took a branch path leading to the crofter's
door. The crofter then stepped inside for a moment
to inform his wife of the approach of a visitor. On
going out again he was more than puzzled to find
that the stranger had in the brief interval completely
vanished. The house stood, and still stands, on a
slight eminence from which an unobstructed view

1 Highland Second- Sight, ed. by N. Macrae, with Introductory Study
by Rev. Wm. Morrison. Dingwall : George Souter.

244 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

can be had of the immediate neighbourhood. But
though the astonished crofter looked on all sides, he
could see nothing further of the stranger. None of
the villagers whose houses he must have passed had
observed him. It is important to note that the
crofter there and then gave a full description of the
man to his wife and to a brother. In a short time
the incident, uncanny though it was, was forgotten.
Some months later a child of the same crofter was
suddenly taken ill. The doctor, a young practitioner
who had but recently come into the district, was
sent for, and in the course of the day the father was
standing at the door of his cottage waiting im-
patiently for the doctor's arrival, when, at a bend
of the road, appeared the mysterious stranger of
several months before. He turned out to be the
expected doctor ; but in features, dress, and appear-
ance generally he was the exact counterpart of the
individual who had formerly presented himself. On
inquiry it was ascertained that the doctor had never
before been in the neighbourhood, and on the par-
ticular day in question had been in the south of
Scotland. The crofter, his wife, and brother, most
respectable and estimable people, are still hale and
hearty, and fond of describing this remarkable inci-
dent " {Chambers's Journal).

Yet man in his essence is one. Hence Healing
embraces the means that are moments in realising
his unity ; and such moments include the rites that
unite

(a) the human with the human,

(/3) the human with the divine.
The former has its physical correspondence : on its

NUPTIAL RITES

245

psychical side it embraces Love alike towards the
human and the divine. Man on one side may be
seen as, to a certain extent, finding realisation
through such things as nuptial rites, covenants and
betrothal (rMe, i.e. * concord '). Here may be found
the ' agreement- whisky ' (tiisge-beatha na recite),
known as 'the knitting or covenant-cup'1 elsewhere.
The Highland betrothal was sometimes spoken of as
'the booking or contracting' {an leabhrachduinn), and
in some places there was in vogue the ceremony of
the feet-washing, which may fitly form the transition
to the marriage ritual. I know this existed in
Inverness-shire, where Oidhche Ghlanadk nan Cas,
' the night of the feet- washing,' was a preliminary of
importance, and afforded the friends of both con-
tracting parties the opportunity of using at times an
abundance of soot along with the water. As con-
nected with the hearth and with the fire, soot had a
magical influence. It seemed, too, to have been the
correct etiquette in that district for the Highland
women to wash the feet of friends and acquaintances
travelling from the neighbouring parts. It may now
have passed away, but it reminds of the old church
rite referred to by Duchesne : Ego tibi lavo pedes,
sicut dominus noster Jesus Christus fecit discipulis
suis, ut tu facias hospitibus et peregrinis, ut habeas

1 The shedding of the blood of a cock is inferred by Clay Trumbull
(The Blood Covenant, p. 199) for Lowland Scotland from the Uoiving
ofjok and Jynny ; he quotes the lines :

Jok tuk Jynny be the hand

And cryd ane feist and slew ane cok.

If a trace of the Blood Covenant can be inferred here, I can only say
that I do not recollect any blood rite associated with Highland
betrothals.

246 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

vitam aeternam — As Christ washed the feet of His
disciples, so others were to do the same towards
guests and strangers, in order to inheriting eternal
life. The ceremony of the feet- washing was observed
in Ireland,1 in Southern Gaul and in Northern Italy.
The ecclesiastical rite may have influenced folk-
practice. On the eve of marriage, however, the
lustration of the feet was to neutralise the mutual
dangers of contact ; compare the custom in the
South Celebes, where before the wedding the bride-
groom bathes in holy water. The soul, in short,
was thought to be in danger of flying away, although
after all it may not be unconnected with a specula-
tion put in the words of Plato : human nature was
originally one, and the desire and pursuit of the
whole is called Love. And Aristophanes seems to
preserve a folk-belief when he says earliest man was
a bisexual hermaphrodite, to humble him he was cut
in two by Zeus. At any rate, the wedding-bath as
a solemn pre-nuptial ablution was part of the pre-
paration for wedlock in Greece, where it also formed
part of the Mysteries.2

A curious side-light upon nuptial covenants is
reflected from a folk-saying current alike in parts of
the Highlands and in Ireland : " If you wish to be
blamed, marry; if you wish to be praised, die."3
One of the preliminaries to marriage was the
faoighdhe? a sort of genteel asking of aid to set

xv. Stowe Missal in Warrerts ed. p. 217.

2 J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folk Lore and Ancient Greek Religion,
592, 594-

3 Mas maith leat do cMineadh, pos ;
Mas maith leat do mholadh, faigh bds.
40. Irish foigde, ixomfo and guidhe, 'beg,' 'entreat.'

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 247

up house, or as token of good- will. It was the part
of the bride's duty to seek for these gifts, which
were also supplemented by the presents 1 forwarded
by those attending the wedding. Such wedding-
presents were a matter of course, for the festivities
formerly lasted over a week. It was held proper for
a woman to be married in a dress borrowed from a
married woman : this was a token of luck, as were
likewise the shots fired as the wedding-party set out.
Persons met with casually on the way were offered
a dram, and the ' healths ' proper to the occasion
were honoured. One of the most significant archaic
customs, found surviving at Little Lochbroom, West
Ross, has been regarded by the Rev. C. Robertson
as pointing to the primitive institution of marriage
by capture. Owing to distance, a trysting place is
arranged, where the bride's party meets the clerical
celebrant. M The bridegroom's house is a little
further away than the bride's home from the trysting
place. While the bride's party is at breakfast on
the morning of the wedding day, a scout is sent out
every few minutes to see what is doing at the bride-
groom's house, and to guard against surprise by him
and his party. The bridegroom's party in the same
way are watching the bride's home. When the
bride and her party set out, there immediately arises
an appearance of great stir and bustle about the
bridegroom's house. Presently he and his party are
seen to come out, and, as though they were in hot
haste to overtake the bride's party, they take a
straight line through fields and over streams and

1 Eairic (according to my pronunciation); cf. O. Ir. airec (2) in
Windisch's Wb. Root in O. Ir. tairciud ' oblation.'

248 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

fences. They do not overtake the party in front,
however, but keep about two hundred yards behind.
When the bride's party sits down to partake of a
refreshment by the way, the pursuers still keep at
the same respectful distance, and sit down to take
their refreshments by themselves. While waiting
for the minister at the trysting place, the two parties
keep at a distance the one from the other, and even
when they are obliged to approach for the per-
formance of the ceremony, they still keep distinct.
Immediately on the conclusion of the ceremony by
which bride and bridegroom are made one, the two
parties mingle together and are associated through-
out the remainder of the day's proceedings."1

The late Dr. Wilde2 records that at the Mid-
summer Eve bonfires many of the old people
circumambulated the fire, repeating certain prayers :
" If a man was about to perform a long journey, he
leaped backwards and forwards three times through
the fire, to give him success in his undertaking. If
about to wed, he did it to purify himself for the
marriage state." Lady Wilde likewise alludes to
the feigning of force in carrying off a bride, who
was placed on a swift horse before the bridegroom,
while all her kindred started in pursuit with shouts
and cries.3

An eighteenth century visitor4 to the North
recorded : " Soon after the wedding-day, the new-
married woman sets herself about spinning her

1 Transactions, Gaelic Soc. Inverness, 26, 298.

2 Irish Popular Superstitions, p. 49.

3 Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends of Ireland, vol. i. p. 219.
*Burfs Letters, vol. ii. p. 106.

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 249

winding sheet, and a husband that should sell or
pawn it is esteemed among all men, one the most
profligate." The editor of Burt, viz. R. Jamieson,
notes that when a woman of the lower class in
Scotland, however poor, and whether married or
single, commences housekeeping, her first care,
after what is absolutely necessary for the time, is to
provide death-linen for herself, and those who look
to her for that office.1 And I have heard of cases
where the new wedding-dress was set aside awaiting
the time of decease, when a matron donned it as her
best now that she hourly expected to join her pre-
deceased spouse. Mrs. Macdonald of Kingsburgh
was wrapped at death in the sheets wherein Prince
Charlie slept. Sympathy was thus expressed by
contact with an object : this idea leads to substitu-
tion, and that very readily to identity. New cradles
were not esteemed ; every endeavour was made to
preserve the old family cradle, which was especially
lucky if a boy had been nursed therein before. To
part with the old cradle was to give away the family
luck.

The Marriage Customs in Pennant's account are
of interest here : " The courtship of the Highlander
has these remarkable circumstances attending it :
after privately obtaining the consent of the Fair, he
formally demands her of the father. The Lover
and his friends assemble on a hill allotted for that
purpose in every parish, and one of them is dispatched
to obtain permission to wait on the daughter ; if he
is successful, he is again sent to invite the father

1 Was this connected with the custom in South Scotland of the
bride presenting a marriage shirt to the bridegroom ?

250 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

and his friends to ascend the hill and partake of a
whisky cask, which is never forgot : the Lover
advances, takes his future Father-in-law by the
hand, and then plights his troth, and the Fair-one
is surrendered up to him. During the marriage
ceremony, great care is taken that dogs do not pass
between them, and particular attention is paid to the
leaving the Bridegroom's left shoe without buckle or
latchet, to prevent witches1 from depriving him, on
the nuptial night, of the power of loosening the
virgin zone. As a test, not many years ago, a
singular custom prevailed in the Western Highlands
the morning after a wedding : a Basket was fastened
with a cord round the neck of the Bridegroom by
the female part of the company, who immediately
filled it with stones, till the poor man was in great
danger of being strangled, if his Bride did not take
compassion on him, and cut the cord with a knife
given her to use at discretion. But such was the
tenderness of the Caledonian spouses, that never
was an instance of their neglecting an immediate
relief of their good man."2

At Logierait, 18 miles from Kenmore, as recently
as 1811, the custom was: " After arriving at the
church, and just immediately before the celebration
of the marriage ceremony, every knot about the

1 An old opinion. Gesner says that the witches made use of toads
as a charm, ' Ut vim coeundi, ni fallor, in viris tollerent,' Gesner,
de quad, ovi, p. 72.

2 Pennant's Tour, i. 187. 'Cutting the creel' is a rite known to the
fishermen of the Berwickshire coast. (E. B. Simpson's Folk Lore in
Lowland Scotland, p. 209.) A knife is given to the newly made wife
who relieves her husband of the load, emblematic of the assistance
that a help-mate renders.

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 251

dress of both bride and bridegroom, such as garters,
shoe-strings, strings of petticoats, etc., was carefully
loosened. After leaving the church the whole
company walk round it, keeping the church wall
always on the right hand. The bridegroom first,
however, turned aside with a friend to tie the strings
of his dress, while the bride retired with her friends
to adjust the disorder of hers."1 Pennant observes
thereanent that ''the precaution of loosening every
knot about the newly-joined pair is strictly observed,
for fear of the penalty denounced in the former
volumes. It must be remarked that the custom is
observed even in France, nouer I ' aiguillette being a
common phrase for disappointments of this nature.
Matrimony is avoided in the month of January,
which is called in Erse the cold month, but what is
more singular, the ceremony is avoided even in the
enlivening month of May."

The Rev. L. Shaw, Historian of Moray, adds in
Pennant s Tour that " at marriages and baptisms
they make a procession around the church, Deasoil,
i.e. sunways, because the sun was the immediate
object of the Druids' worship."

I have myself seen the wedding-bannock (bonnack
bainnse), baked by a wise matron, broken by her
upon the head of the bride as she entered the house on
the return from church, in the year 1875. It is parallel
to the confarreatio of the Romans in some ways.

And the same rite is met with in Ireland : Lady
Wilde2 states: "On arriving at her future home,

1 Celtic Magazine, x. 542.

2 Ancient Legends of Ireland, i. 219, where one elaborate account of
an old Kerry wedding is quoted and of interest otherwise.

252 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

the bride was met on the threshold by the bride-
groom's mother, who broke an oaten cake over her
head as a good augury of plenty in the future."

After marriage the snood of the maid was ex-
changed for the kerch (dre'zd) of the spouse, a
custom referred to in a marriage ode beginning :
"a thousand blessings to thee in thy kerch."1

The rites that unite the human with the divine
embrace all forms of partaking in thankfulness in
common with the divine as it is recognised ; the
giving to get ; the giving to appease. Here account
has to be taken of commensality, or, in other words,
of primitive pagan eucharists. To my mind, the
earliest thought is that of partaking of food in com-
mon with the divine. A very careful person I have
known would never have food served to others or
partaken of without adding : " May God have as
much of his own."2 And just as it was held highly
unlucky for a boy to sweep the floor after a death,
some would not have the floor swept after food was
cooked or partaken of. The fragments that fell on
the floor belonged to the household spirit or sithich,
i.e. the 'fairy.' Close upon the thought to be in-
ferred therefrom is that embraced by all forms of
libation. Of old it was common enough to pour a
milk libation on the fairy-knoll.3 In the eighteenth
century the Rev. Donald MacQueen, minister of
Kilmuir, Skye, contributed some account of the
Gruagach to Pennant's Tour. After some references
to the classics, he adds that "the superstition or
warm imagination of ignorant people introduced him

1 Mile beannachd dhuit-s* fo d bhreid.

2 Uibhir aig Dia de a chuid. 3 Sithein.

RITES THAT UNITE MAN WITH THE DIVINE 253

as a sportive salutary guest into several families, in
which he played many entertaining tricks, and then
disappeared. It is a little more than a century ago
since he hath been supposed to have got an honest
man's daughter with child, at Shulista, near to
Duntulme, the seat of the family of Macdonald :
though it is more probable that one of the great
man's retinue did that business for him. But though
the Gruagach offers himself to every one's fancy as
a handsome man, with fair tresses, his emblems,
which are in almost every village, are no other than
rude unpolished stones of different figures just as
they seemed cast up to the hand of the Druid who
consecrated them. Carving was not introduced into
the Hebrides ; and though it had, such of the un-
formed images as were preserved would for their
antiquity be reverenced, in presence of any attempts
in the modern arts.

" The Gruagach Stones, as far as tradition can
inform us, were only honoured with libations of
milk, from the hands of the dairy maid, which were
offered to Gruagach upon the Sunday, for the
preservation of the cattle on the ensuing week.
From this custom Apollo seems to have derived
the epithet Galaxius. This was one of the sober
offerings that well became a poor or frugal people,
who had neither wine nor oil to bestow ; by which
they recommended their only stock and subsistence
to their favourite Divinity, whom they had always
in their eye and whose blessings they enjoyed every
day. . . . The idol stones that remain with us are
oblong square altars of rough stone, that lie within
the Druids' Houses, as we call them. Observe also,

254 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

that the worship of the sun seems to have continued
in England until King Canute's time, by a law of
his, which prohibits that, with other idolatrous
practices." Martin corroborates this of the island
of Valay, where " there is a flat thick stone call'd
Brownie's Stone, upon which the ancient inhabitants
offered a cow's milk every Sunday, but this custom
is now quite abolish'd."

The old custom of libation is clearly seen in the
following : " Clanranald used to have a summer
shieling on one of the islets off Benbecula. He
had a herd and a milkmaid there. They were both
of them Catholics, and at the time of changing
residence were in the habit of spilling a coggie of
milk on the fairy-knoll. The dairy maid left
Clanranald's service, and in her stead he engaged
a Protestant. On the day of changing from the
shieling the herd requested that milk might be left
on the knoll. She replied : * No ! I don't heed
Popish incantations.' That same night the best
cow in the fold was dead, and on the morrow it was
blood and not milk that the cows gave. Clanranald
sent away the new dairy maid, and he took back the
maid who had formerly left his service to take her
place. They never heard any further mishap." This
on the authority of an old shepherd, whose grand-
father, he said, was the herd in question.

The sea-god Shony, according to Martin,1 "had
libations offered him in Lewis at Hallowtide : they
gathered to the Church of St. Mulvay, Lewis : each
family furnished a peck of malt, and this was brew'd
into ale : one of their number was picked out to

1 A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland, ed. 1716, p. 28.

LIBATION: MICHAEL'S CAKE 255

wade into the sea up to the middle, and carrying a
cup of ale in his hand, standing still in that posture,
cry'd out with a loud voice, saying : Shony, I give
you this cup of ale, hoping that you 11 be so kind as to
send us plenty of sea-ware, for enriching our ground
the ensuing year, and so threw the cup of ale into the
sea. This was performed in the night time. At his
return to land they all went to church ; there was a
candle burning upon the altar ; and then, standing
silent for a little time, one of them gave a signal at
which the candle was put out, and immediately all of
them went to the fields, where they fell a-drinking
their ale, and spent the remainder of the night in
dancing and singing."

Of immemorial antiquity is another rite referred
to by Martin: "They have a general cavalcade on
All Saints' Day, and then they bake St. Michael's
Cake at night, and the family and strangers eat it at
supper"1 (South Uist). For Barra he says : u Every
family, as soon as the solemnity (the cavalcade) is
ended, is accustomed to bake St. Michael's Cake, as
above described ; and all strangers, together with
those of the family, must eat the bread that night."2
It is met with likewise in Ross-shire : " Perhaps one
of the quaintest of old-world customs which still
survives in some out-of-the-way places is the pre-
paration of the Struan Michael, or cakes sacred to
the celebration of Michaelmas Day. It is more
peculiarly a Hebridean custom, and, though fast
dying out, it is not unknown, and last autumn I
tasted some. Michaelmas Day was always observed

1 Description of the Western Isles, 2nd ed. 17 16, p. 89.

2 lb. p. 100.

256 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

in the Celtic Calendar, and Struan Michaels and
Beltane Bannocks entered as much into the calcula-
tions of the Highland housewife as do Shrove-tide
cakes and hot-cross-buns elsewhere. They were
prepared somewhat after this fashion. The first
sheaves of the harvest were taken, dried and ground
into meal with the quern. Then the housewife took
some eggs, butter and treacle, mixed them up, and
into the mixture put the new meal, making a dough.
On the stone slab forming her hearth-stone she put
some red-hot peats, and when sufficiently heated,
swept it clean. On this the dough was placed to
cook with an inverted pot over it. During the
process of cooking, it was often basted with beaten
eggs, forming a custard-like covering. Finally,
after the cake was cooked, a small piece was broken
off and cast into the fire. Why? you will ask.
Well, as an offering to the Donas, or old Hornie,
or whatever may be the correct designation of that
presiding genius whom we are led to believe inhabits
the fiery regions. The housewife did this in order
to safeguard herself and her household against the
Evil One. After reserving some of the Struan
for the use of the household, she went round the
neighbours in triumph and gave them a bit each,
there being usually a great rivalry as to who
should be the first to grind the new meal and get
the Struan ready. The first to do so was gener-
ally understood to have the best crops through the
coming year."1

Offerings to Michael are clearly referred to in the

Sheila MacDonald in Folk-Lore, 1903, pp. 381-382, 'Old- World
Survivals in Ross-shire'; cf. vol. xiii. p. 44.

OFFERING 257

Isle of Eriskay rite, that when a person is paring his
nails and having his hair cut, he should say : " My
hair and my nails be with Nigh! Mhicheil for my
soul's welfare " (m'fhalt is m'iongnan aig Nigh'
Mhicheil, air rath m'anmanna). The Rev. Allan
Macdonald, priest of the island, had the phrase from
the late Duncan M'Innes, Ru Ban, Eriskay, and
distinctly noticed "that the pronunciation was not
Naomh Micheil, ' St. Michael,' but 'nigh Mhicheil'
{i.e. daughter of Michael ?), whosoever she may have
been." But I have little doubt but the pronunciation
with the i was a variant well-known elsewhere for
the high-back vowel ao.

The idea of offering clearly appears in the action
of fishermen, who, when they thought they saw a
mermaid, threw overboard any fish that they might
have in order to propitiate her, inasmuch as her
appearance was held to portend foul weather. A
parallel idea comes out in the old custom once
observed on entering a new house for the first time
of throwing something into the house before one,
saying slan treabhaidh an so, equivalent to invoking
a blessing on the abode. I well remember old people
who on no account would enter a house, particularly
when the family were at meal, without exclaiming :
*-* Blessing be before me!"1 A practice the opposite of
this was the putting of a dead creature, such as a
crow, on the hearth of a house to which another family
was flitting. This I have seen in the Highlands, as
well as the new tenant go round his fields with
' blessed ' water, sprinkling alike boundaries and
cattle in a manner that reminded of customs met

1 Beannachd romham.
R

258 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

with in old Italian rites.1 Offerings also were the
coins thrown into wells, as also the twigs of heather
cast into them or near them. This leads to the idea
of propitiation. The idea of do ut abeas, ' I give that
thou mayest be gone/ is manifest in the Uist ritual
of the St. Michael's Cake.2 A bit of dough is taken
from off the baking-board and placed on the embers,
where it is burnt. It is called the Devil's Tithe, the
Evil One's portion, and such names. The bit of
dough, when burnt, is thrown over the left shoulder,
the operant saying : " Here to thee, thou rascal
[Devil], and stay behind me, stay from my kine ! '
The cake may be baked for the prosperity (air
sealbhaich) of the house, of the household, or of any
individual member.

Keating3 inserts a story which tells how St. Patrick
restored Lughaidh, son of King Laoghaire, to life.
Michael the Archangel, in form of a bird, put his
bill into the lad's throat, and took out the morsel
which choked the king's son. " When the queen
heard that it was Michael the Archangel who brought
back her son to life, she bound herself to give a
sheep out of every flock she possessed each year,
and a portion of every meal she should take during
her life, to the poor of God, in honour of Michael the
Archangel ; and, moreover, she enjoined this as a
custom throughout Ireland on all who received
baptism and the faith from Patrick, whence is the
custom of the Michaelmas sheep and the Michael's

1 Cf. the ritual of the Terminalia (Ovid's Fasti, 2, 643 ; 2, 655 ; also
4, 743-746).

2 Srubhan Micheil, also written Struan.

3 Ed. Dinneen, bk. ii. pp. 41-43.

MICHAEL'S PORTION

259

portion (mire Michil) in Ireland ever since." Grati-
tude is here the foundation of the sacrificial meal ;
the converse of this is the thought : when the deity
gets what is due, the offerer expects to be granted
what is right in return. Not that sacrifice is but a
bargain ; it is a highly complex act.

The Michaelmas Sheep of Keating's account is
doubtless the Michaelmas Lamb which in the
Hebrides is slain at the season when the Michael
Cake is made. Dr. Carmichael's account 1 tells how,
after the cake is cut into sections, the father of the
family^ " cuts up the lamb into small pieces. He
takes the board with the bread and the flesh on the
centre of the table. Then the family, standing
round, and holding a bit of struan (cake) in the left
hand and a piece of lamb in the right, raise the
1 Iolach Micheil,' triumphal song of Michael, in praise
of Michael, who guards and guides them, and in
praise of God, who gives them food and clothing,
health and blessing withal. The man and his wife
put struan into one beehive basket (ciosan) and lamb
into another, and go out to distribute them among
the poor of the neighbourhood who have no flocks
nor fruits themselves."

I believe that in a district where, too, the popula-
tion is not of the Roman persuasion, the Michaelmas
Lamb has been killed not so long ago. The whole
ceremony has its parallel in the Lithuanian Sabarios,
i.e. 'the mixing or throwing together,' at the eating
of the new corn. Just as the Michaelmas Cake was
made from grain newly ripened in the field and fresh
ground in the quern, the grain for the Sabarios was

1 Carm. Gadelica, i. 204.

260 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

the first thrashed and winnowed, and then baked into
little loaves, one for each of the household. From a
portion beer was brewed, and a jugful poured on the
bung of the barrel, the Lithuanian farmer saying :
" O fruitful earth, make rye and barley and all kinds
of corn to flourish ! " Then a black or white or
speckled cock and hen were taken and killed by
blows from a wooden spoon, all holding up their
hands, saying: " O God, and thou, O earth, we give
you this cock and hen as a free-will offering ! ' The
Lithuanian rite, which Dr. Frazer interprets as the
body of the corn-spirit, partaken of sacramentally,
took place at the beginning of December.1

Another cake was made at Beltane on May- Day.
This cake had a large hole in the middle, through
which each of the cows in the field was milked. In
Tiree it was of a triangular form.

Parallel in respect of its pointing to an offering is
the Beltane custom at Callander, described by Mr.
James Robertson, minister of the parish:2 "The
people of this district have two customs, which are
fast wearing out, not only here, but all over the High-
lands, and therefore ought to be taken notice of while
they remain. Upon the first day of May, which is
called Bel-tan, or Bal-tein day, all the boys in a
township or hamlet meet in the moors. They cut a
table in the green sod, of a round figure, by casting
a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to

1 Golden Bough, i. 319-320.

2 Sinclair's Statistical Account, xi. 620. The word Beltane, however,
has no connection with the Phoenician Baal, but involves the idea of
whiteness or brightness from the fires then lit in honour of the sun-
god ; cf. Lithuanian baltas, 'white,' and the root in Baltic, v. MacBain's
Dictionary,

RELICS OF SACRIFICE 261

hold the whole company. They kindle a fire, and
dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of
a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is
toasted at the embers against a stone. After the
custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so
many portions, as similar as possible to one another
in size and shape, as there are persons in the com-
pany. They daub one of these portions all over
with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They put
all the bits of cake in a bonnet. Every one, blind-
fold, draws out a portion. He who holds the bonnet
is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black
bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to
Baa/, whose favour they mean to implore in render-
ing the year productive of the sustenance of man and
beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman sacri-
fices having been once offered in this country, as well
as in the east, although they now pass from the act
of sacrificing, and only compel the devoted person to
leap three times through the flames ; with which the
ceremonies of this festival are closed. The other
custom is, that on All-Saints' Even they set up bon-
fires in every village. When the bonfire is con-
sumed, the ashes are carefully collected in the form
of a circle. There is a stone put in, near the circum-
ference, for every person of the several families
interested in the bonfire ; and whatever stone is
moved out of its place, or injured before next morn-
ing, the person represented by that stone is devoted,
or fey, and is supposed not to live twelve months
from that day. The people received the consecrated
fire from the Druid priests next morning, the virtues
of which were supposed to continue for a year."

262 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

In the parish of Kirkmichael,1 adjoining Logierait.
there was baked a consecrated cake for the first of
May. The cake, with knobs, was used, we may-
infer, formerly for determining who was to be the
victim of the flames. The cakes baked at that period
at Logierait had small lumps in the form of nipples
raised all over the surface.

Thomas Pennant, who travelled in Perthshire in
the year 1769, tells us that "on the 1st of May the
herdmen of every village hold their Beltein, a rural
sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground,
leaving the turf in the middle ; on that they make
a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle
of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk ; and bring besides
the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and
whisky ; for each of the company must contribute
something. The rites began with spilling some of
the caudle on the ground, by way of libation : on
that, every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which
are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to
some particular being, the supposed preserver of
their flocks and herds, and to some particular animal,
the real destroyer of them. Each person then turns
his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it
over his shoulders, says, 'This I give to thee, pre-
serve thou my horses ; this to thee, preserve thou
my sheep ; and so on.' After that they use the
same ceremony to the noxious animals : 'This I give
to thee, O fox, spare thou my lambs ; this to thee,
O hooded crow ! this to thee, O eagle ! ' When the
ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle ; and
after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by

1 Sinclair's Statistical Account, xv. 517 n.

PURIFICATION; FERTILITY 263

two persons deputed for that purpose, but on the
next Sunday they reassemble and finish the reliques
of the first entertainment."

The idea of offerings is at times closely associated
with purification. It is met with in the rites con-
nected with the caisean-uchd, i.e. the strip of skin
from the breast of a sheep killed at Christmas, New
Year and other sacred festivals. " The strip is oval,
and no knife must be used in removing it from the
flesh. It is carried by the carollers when they visit
the houses of the townland, and when lit by the head
of the house it is given to each person in turn to
smell, going sunwise. Should it go out, it is a bad
omen for the person in whose hand it becomes
extinguished. The inhaling of the fumes of the
burning skin and wool is a talisman to safeguard
the family from fairies, witches, demons and other
uncanny creatures during the year."1 Macleod and
Dewar's Gaelic Dictionary defines it as "the breast-
strip of a sheep killed at Christmas or New Year's
Eve, and singed and smelled by each member of the
family as a charm against fairies and spirits." The
word caisean means 'anything curled/ particularly
the dew-lap which hangs from the breast of animals.
To judge by M 'Alpine's phrase, 'never for the sake
of fairies/ the rite in I slay was in vogue as a pre-
servative at any time and was not connected with
the fairy-world. The practice is referred to in a
quite recent account from South Uist, which I may
translate : " Now I must conclude. The observers
of New Year's Eve (Christmas Eve, old style)
are approaching me with the loud shouting proper

1 Cartn. Gadel. ii. 239.

264 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

to the season, and according to old custom they will
go sunwise round the house, bringing the Callaig
(the Hogmanay) gift with them. At the door the
Callaig rhyme is to be said on entering : This is to
bless the dwelling ; may God bless this house and
its inmates all ! Going sunwise round the fire, the
Hogmanay Breast-strip (Caisein Calluig) is to be
set-on-fire or lighted, that is, the breast-skin of a
wedder ; each person in the house is to seize hold of
it as it burns, making the sign of the cross, if he be
a Catholic, in the name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. That burning strip is
to be put thrice sunwise about their heads. If the
burning skin be extinguished in the process, it is a
bad omen for the New Year's happiness. Then
they will get their Hogmanay portion, each one
according to his opportunity ; with good will they
then disperse with the words : The blessing of God
and of the Hogmanay be with you all ; if well
to-night, seven times better may ye be a year
to-night ! "

J. G. Campbell, in his Witchcraft and Second
Sight (p. 233), gives a full form of the rhyme with
the following lines :

The Calluinn Breast-strip is in my pocket,

A goodly mist comes from it ;
The goodman will get it first,
And shove its nose into the fire upon the hearth.
It will go sunwise round the children,
And particularly the wife will get it.

Mr. Campbell specifies as to the procession that
the hide of the mart cow, killed for winter use, was
wrapped round the head of one of the men, and he

THE MAN IN COW-HIDE 265

made off, followed by the rest, belabouring the hide,
which made a noise like a drum, with switches. One
of the participators, that is, had to be clothed in
hide.1 I am reminded of the Roman Luperci who,
on 1 5th February, girt themselves with the skins of
slaughtered goats and struck all the women who
came near them with strips of skin from the hides
of the goat-victims, such strips being among the
objects called by the priests februa. The purposes
of such rites were purification and fructification ; the
victim was sacro-sanct, and an effort was thus made
towards symbolising by participation the physical
unity of all life. The old custom of throwing bones
or burnt pieces of animals into the flames is testified
to by the name l bonefire.' Dr. Fowler has noted
that the Highland 'man in cowhide' is singularly
like the Roman rite as Lydus describes it ; the skin-
clad man, the old Mars, was beaten with long rods
and driven out of Rome on the day preceding the
full moon of the old Roman year, which began on
March 1. The month of March was dedicated to
him as the deity of the sprouting vegetation.
Though now we have the Highland rite but in a
shadow, we may infer that the intent was to com-
municate new life by the burnt strip of skin, and
that originally there was slaughter of an animal :
the man girt with the hide of the sacro-sanct victim
became one with the victim ; he entered into the
nature of the life-giving blood shed. Just as

1 As to the man clad in cow-skin, see Ramsay's Scotland and Scots-
men in the Eighteenth Century, ed. 1888, vol. ii. 438; cf. Elton's
Origins of English History, 1890, p. 411. The individual essays to
assimilate himself with the substance of the victim offered.

266 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

washing the hands in pig's blood is held to be a
cure for warts in the Highlands still, of old the
virtue of blood was greater. May we not pre-
sumably infer that blood purified ? Elsewhere the
murderer's hands were purified by smearing them
with the blood of a young pig (Apollonius Rho-
dius, 4, 478).

Blood makes the transition to animal sacrifice.
Here, making allowance for cross-division in so
complex a subject, we arrive at :

(b) The rites that avert.

I give an instance from Ross -shire : " Here
is another curious practice in connection with
epilepsy which I saw carried out many years
ago, and which is, I suppose, a survival of old
pagan sacrificial rites. A child, belonging to a
family whom I know well, was suddenly seized
with convulsions, and its relatives would have it
that the child had epilepsy. Accordingly, emissaries
were sent through the parish to procure a black
cock, without a single white feather, and without
blemish of any kind. This latter is important ;
the finer the animal, the more readily does the
spell work. Well, then, a cock was found which
suited the requirements ; the stone floor in the room
where the child was first seized was opened up at
the exact spot where the seizure took place. The
unfortunate animal was sealed down and buried
alive, after which an incantation was muttered over
it by a 'wise woman.' '* The child was afterwards
bathed.

1 Folk- Lore for 1903, pp. 370-1. For cock-sacrifice in France, v.
Sebillot, Le Paqanisme Contemfiorain, p. 202. In the Highland

RITES THAT AVERT 267

A correspondent from Lewis is quoted. He
writes : " The cure for epileptic fits is more barbarous,
and to my knowledge was used not three months
ago in Barvas (4^ miles from here). A black cock
(the barn-door variety), without a light-coloured
feather, is buried alive on the spot where the
patient experienced his or her first fit ; that is all
and the cure is effected by [inducing] the evil spirit
causing epilepsy to leave the patient and enter into
the body of the cock." l

A special form of sacrifice is connected with the
cat. The ulterior purpose is to invoke the Evil
One, according to modern folk-belief, and while the
rite is named ' invocation ' (taghairm) 2 the means
used partake of something of the nature of sacrifice
mingled with compelling magic. The account I
give is from an authentic source in the London
Literary Gazette, March, 1824.3 "The last time
the Taughairm (sic) was performed in the Highlands
was in the island of Mull, in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and the place is still well known
to the inhabitants. Allan Maclean, commonly styled

asseveration, Ged shlugadh an talamh mi=i though the earth should
swallow me' there is testimony to the sacredness of the earth. A
vestige of a similar belief exists in the Breton imprecation rendered:
'Que la terre s'ouvre pour m'engloutir' (ib. 308). The Celtic oath
was by the elements, and by the essence of the sun and moon as in
Irish, tar brigh greine is gealaighe.

1 Cf. Folk-Lore, xi. p. 446 (text and note 2).

20. Ir. to-gairtn 'invocatio'; Ir. toghairm 'summoning, request,
prayer, petition.'

3 Other accounts in J. G. Campbell's Superstitions, 304, where he
designates it as 'giving his supper to the devil' ; Norrie's Loyal Lochaber,
p. 247 ; Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary ; Martin, Western Isles, speaks
of another method of Taghairm by wrapping a person in a cow-hide,
all but his head. His "invisible friends" would answer his queries.

268 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Allan mac Echain (son of Hector) was the projector
of these horrid rites ; and he was joined by Lachlan
Maclean, otherwise denominated Lachunn Odhar
(Lachlann the Dun). They were of resolute and
determined character, and both young and unmarried.
" The institution was no doubt of pagan origin, and
was a sacrifice offered to the Evil Spirit, in return
for which the votaries were entitled to demand two
boons. The idea entertained of it at the time must
have been dreadful, and it is still often quoted for
the purpose of terrifying the young and credulous.
The sacrifice consisted of living cats roasted on a spit
while life remained, and when the animal expired
another was put on in its place. This operation
was continued for four days and nights without
tasting food. The Taughairm commenced at mid-
night between Friday and Saturday, and had not
long proceeded when infernal spirits began to enter
the house or barn in which it was performing, in the
form of black cats. The first cat that entered, after
darting a furious look at the operator, said : ' Lachunn
Odhar, thou son of Neil, that is bad usage of a cat'
Allan, who superintended as master of the rites,
cautioned Lachunn that whatever he should hear or
see, he must continue to turn the spit ; and this was
done accordingly. The cats continued to enter, and
the yells of the cat on the spit, joined by the rest,
were tremendous. A cat of enormous size at last
appeared and told Lachunn Odhar that if he did not
desist before his great-eared brother arrived, he
never would behold the face of God. Lachunn
answered that if all the devils in hell came he would
not flinch until his task was concluded. By the end

TAGHAIRM 269

of the fourth day there was a black cat at the root
of every rafter on the roof of the barn, and their
yells were distinctly heard beyond the Sound of
Mull in Morvern." Another account is given by
the late Rev. Dr. Clerk of Kilmaille.1 who states
that Allan nan Creach, one of the Lochiels of the
fifteenth century, had recourse " to the oracle of the
Tigh Ghairm or House of Invocation [sic)!' While
incorrect in his spelling of the name, which has
nothing to do with tigh 'house,' most of the other
details agree with the preceding account. The king
of the cats is named therein Cluasa Leabhra from
his ears of portentous magnitude. The command
given to the operant was : ' Hear you this or see
you that, Round the spit and turn the cat.'2 If the
presumptuous mortal quailed he would become the
prey of the Evil One ; if bold enough the cats would
answer any question in return for the release of the
tortured beast. This Lochiel succeeded in attain-
ing : he asked, it was said, ' What must I do to be
saved ? ' and the answer of the oracle was a com-
mand to build seven churches, one for each of his
great forays, and thus to expiate his sins. Another
account 3 tells how the MacArthurs at Glassary made
a taghairm. It is explained that " it seems if you
make a Taghairm the Mac Molach (recte, Mag
Molach, i.e. Hairy Hand or Paw) will come and
tell you anything you ask him." MacArthur offered
to fight all that was dead or alive within the sea,
and from the evil consequences he was only saved

1 Memoir of Colonel John Cameron of Fassifearn, 2nd ed. 1858.

2 Ciod air bith a chi no chuaP thu cuir mu'n cuairt an cat.

3 J. F. Campbell, MSS. (Adv. Lib.), vol. xiii. p. 368.

270 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

by the virtues of the Need-Fire. But more impor-
tant animals were sacrificed. Just as a white steer
was sacrificed to the sky-god on the Capitol at
Rome,1 we hear of white bulls which the Gaulish
druids sacrificed under the holy oak before they cut
the mistletoe.2

It is recorded by Sir James Simpson, the dis-
coverer of chloroform, that in the latter end of the
eighteenth century his own father "was in early life
personally engaged in the offering up and burying
of a poor live cow as a sacrifice to the spirit of
Murrain."3 This was done within twenty miles of
Edinburgh, ^and by a shrewd farrier who yet laid
aside a corner of a field — ' the gude-man's croft,' —
as an offering to the Evil One. I well recollect
how in the Highlands, when any loss occurred
among cattle in spring (earckall) the hooves and
sometimes the head or parts of it were taken away
to the wood and buried secretly in the soil under
great trees where nobody could possibly molest
them. It was still better to bury them on an adjoin-
ing estate, and across a river. This was to put
away the earckall and to prevent the loss of more
animals. It was a giving of part for the whole. In
some of the Isles there is still a memory of a cure
for a species of cattle-plague 4 which was especially

1 Arnobius, Adv. Nationes, ii. 68 ; Livy, xxii. 10. 7 ; Ovid, Ex Ponto,
iv. 4. 31 ; Servius on Virgil, Georg. ii. 146; Horace, Carin. Seculare, 49.

2 Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 250.

3E. Simpson, Folk Lore in Lowland Scotland, p. 27 ; for burning a
living calf to preserve the rest, see Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of
Scotland, p. 184 ; cattle were buried alive and others driven over the
spot to arrest mortality {ib. 185-186).

4 An Crithreamh Gorm.

ANIMAL SACRIFICE 271

destructive of heifers. The old people said if the
heifer's head were struck off at a single blow with a
clean or stainless sword that the plague would cease,
and that no further death would occur.1 This was
done in the eighteenth century. One who lived
until 1820 remembered seeing his father bring home
the decapitated heifer. The man's father explained
the reason ; he was wont to say likewise that they
lost no more cattle by the plague.

" In Wales," says the Rev. John Evans in 181 2,
"when a violent disease breaks out amongst the
horned cattle, the farmers of the district where it
rages join to give up a bullock for a victim, which is
carried to the top of a precipice from whence it is
thrown down." He says this is known as " casting
a captive to the devil."2 In Cornwall, about 1800,
a calf was burnt to death, the object of the sacrifice
being to arrest the murrain ! In Devon a ram was
slain.3 At Gaulish communal sacrifices Diodorus
(v. 284) tells that close to the worshippers on certain

^huirt seann daoine nam biodh an ceann air a chur far fear
dhiubh le aon bhuille claidheamh glan gun stadadh a phlaigh agus
nach basaicheadh a h-aon tuilleadh dhiubh (from a M6d Competition
Paper of 1907, entitled An Crithreamh Gorm. The writer adds: Tha
fhios againn gun dean luchd-ionnsachaidh an Ik 'n diu gaire fanoid
ris a so, ach tha e nis nas fasa gu mor gaire dheanamh ris na tha e
mhineachadh ciod bu chiall da ; co dhiubh cha ghabh e aicheadh nach
robh an ni ann oir bha e air Innseadh am measg nan coimhearsnach
ann san eilean uile, eadhon gus a nis agus bha mac Iain Mhic Thear-
laich a bha beo gus a bhliadhna 1820 'gainnseadh do m'athair-saagus
gum fac e an t-agh 'ga thabhairt dhachaigh aig athair air slaod agus
an ceann dheth agus gun do ghabh e fein ioghnadh mor do'n chuis
ciod a b'aobhar dha gus an d'innis athair dha mar a thachair e. Bha
e ag radh mar an ceudna nach d'fhalbh aon do'n chrodh aca tuilleadh.

2 For references v. Forbes-Leslie, Early Races of Scotland, p. 85.

3 Hastings, Encyclop. of Religion and Ethics, iii. 297 .

272 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

religious occasions were u hearths laden with fire, and
having upon them cauldrons and spits full of the
carcases of whole animals." Animals were even
bought for sacrifices, according to Arrian.1

I would not wish to press what Keating denies,
but in the light of other survivals among the Celts
the statement of Giraldus Cambrensis2 can hardly
be the offspring of his own imagination, but a sur-
vival in old belief, though not in the custom of his
day. When the king of the Cineal Conaill used to
be inaugurated, says Giraldus, an assembly was
made of the people of his country on a high hill in
his territory ; a white mare being slain, and put to
boil in a large pot in the centre of the field ; on being
boiled he was to drink up her broth like a hound or
beagle with his mouth, and to eat the flesh out of
his hands without having a knife or any instrument
for cutting it. He would have to divide the rest of
the flesh among the assembly, and then bathe himself
in the broth. If this be a case of tribal totemistic
communion-sacrifice part of the ritual is to be com-
pared with that of the tarbh-feiss, or bull-feast,
mentioned in The Sick- Bed of Cuchulainn as a
means of divination, and with references to the horse
as sacred elsewhere. We know the strong aversion
we entertain against eating horse-flesh. It seems to
be very old among the Celts. When Vercingetorix
had sent away all his cavalry by night from Alesia,
having barely corn for thirty days, Critognatus later
on proposed to support life by the corpses of those

1 Cyneg. xxxiv. i.

2 Top. Hibemica, dist. iii. c. 25. For refutation see Keating's
History, Irish Texts Soc. ed. vol. i. p. 23.

ANIMAL SACRIFICE

273

who appeared useless for war on account of their
age, as alluded to by Caesar for "singular and
detestable cruelty."1 A modern general would have
utilised his horses for food. We seem to be in the
presence of a taboo from a time when horses were
sacred, as they were among the Icelanders, who up
to the time of their adoption of Christianity ate horse-
flesh on certain occasions, — a liberty allowed them
even after baptism, but soon discarded.

A Highland example is the sacrifice of bulls at
Loch Maree. It is attested by the Records of the
Presbytery of Dingwall,2 from which I give the
relevant extracts, omitting the parties' names for
brevity's sake :

"At Appilcross,3 5th Sept. 1656.
. . . the presbyterie of Dingwall . . . findeing amongst uther
abhominable and heathenishe practices that the people in that
place (Applecross) were accustomed to sacrifice bulls at a certaine
tyme uppon the 25 of August, which day is dedicate, as they
conceive to Sn Mourie as they call him ; and that there were
frequent approaches to some ruinous chappels and circulateing of
them ; and that future events in reference especiallie to lyfe and
death, in takeing of Journeyis, was exspect to be manifested by a
holl of a round stone quherein they tryed the entering of their
heade, which (if they) could doe, to witt be able to put in thair
heade, they exspect thair returning to that place, and failing they
considered it ominous; and withall their adoring of wells, and
uther superstitious monuments and stones, tedious to rehearse
Have appoynted as follows — That quhosoever sail be found to
commit such abhominationes, especiallie Sacrifices of any kynd,

1 De Bello Gall. vii. 77, vii. 71.

2 These are published by the Scottish Texts Society and edited by
William Mackay. I quote from the Appendix to Mr. Dixon's book 011
Gairloch, as being at hand.

3Abercrossan is the old historical form and means the estuary of
the River Crossan. The change from r to / is dialectal.

274 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

or at any tyme, sail publickly appear and be rebuked ... six
several Lord's dayis in six several churches, viz., Lochcarron,
Appilcross, Contane, Fottertie, Dingwall, and last in Garloch
paroch church . . .

"At Kenlochewe, 9 Septr 1656.

"Inter alia, Ordaines Mr Allex M'Kenzie, minister at Loch-
carron, to cause summond Murdo M'conill varchue vie conill vie
Allister in Torriton, and Donald Smyth in Appilcross, for sacri-
ficing at Appilcross — to compeire at Dingwall the third Wednesday
of October, with the men of Auchnaseallach.

"The brethren taking to their consideratione the abhominationes
within the parochin of Garloch in sacrificing of beasts upon the
25 August, as also in pouring of milk upon hills as oblationes
quhose names ar not particularly signified as yit — referres to the
diligence of the minister to mak search of thease persones and
summond them as said is in the former ordinance and act at
Appilcross 5 Sept: 1656, and withall that by his private diligence
he have searchers and tryers in everie corner of the countrey,
especiallie about the Lochmourie, of the most faithful honest men
he can find ; and that such as ar his elders he particularly poseit,
concerning former practices in quhat they knowe of these poore
ones quho are called Mourie his derilans l and ownes thease titles,
quho receaves the sacrifices and offerings upon the accompt of
Mourie his poore ones ; and that at laist some of thease be
summoned to compeire before the pbrie the forsaid day, until the
rest be discovered ; and such as heve boats about the loch to
transport themselves or uthers to the He of Mourie quherein ar
monuments of Idolatrie. . . . The brethren heiring be report that
Miurie hes his monuments and remembrances in severall paroches
within the province, but more particularly in the paroches of
Lochcarron, Lochalse, Kintaile, Contan, and Fottertie, and
Lochbroome It is appoynted that the brethren . . . heve a Cor-
respondence, in trying and curbing all such. . . .

"At Dingwall, 6 August 1678.
"Inter alia, That day Mr Roderick Mackenzie minister at
Gerloch by his letter to the prebrie, declared that he had

1 Afflicted ones or lunatics ; founded on Gaelic deireoil ' afflicted,'
used in Kirke's Bible (William Mackay).

ANIMAL SACRIFICE

275

summoned by his officer to this prebrie day Hector Mackenzie in
Mellan in the parish of Gerloch, as also Johne Murdoch and
Duncan Mackenzies, sons to the said Hector — as also Kenneth
M'Kenzie his grandson, for sacrificing a bull in ane heathenish
manner in the iland of St Ruffus commonly called Elian Moury
in Lochew, for the recovering of the health of Cirstane Mackenzie,
spouse to the said Hector Mackenzie, who was formerlie sicke
and valetudinaire : — Who being all cited, and not compearing, are
to be all summoned again pro 20."

St. Maolrubha, whose death is recorded for the
year 722, and whose historical double is Ruffus, was
not the only saint on the way of being deified.
Reginald of Durham has a notice of a bull being
offered to St. Cuthbert, at his church on the Solway,
on the festival kept on the day of the dedication of
the church in the year 1 164.1 St. Maolrubha's well
was desecrated through a mad dog having been
brought to drink of its waters. Animal cures, more-
over, were sometimes attempted by offering them
the life of another animal. An instance is recorded
by Hugh Miller in his Schools and Schoolmasters.
He had paid a visit to his aunt's house at Gruids,
Lairg, and saw " his cousin, George, administer to
an ailing cow a little live trout, simply because the
traditions of the district assured him that a trout
swallowed alive by the creature was the only specific
in the case." Again, the animal life offered may be
simply buried alive as a sacrificial rite, as when a
live cock or a live toacV is buried in the hope of
curing some bodily ailments. The idea here is that
of putting the disease away — do tit abeas, ' I give that
thou may st be gone.' With the burial act one may
compare the rite of burying a murdered man's boots

^he Libellus on St. Cuthbert's virtues, Surtees Society, p. 185.

276 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

to prevent his spirit from returning to earth again.1
A certain disease among cattle, Na Geumraich, or
'cattle lowing,' was held to be curable only by
human blood. The Rev. C. Robertson2 gives an
independent account which corroborates the one I
now quote by a clergyman lately deceased and long
familiar with the district.

" The most horrible of sacrificial remedies was that
in vogue at one time for the cure of cattle-madness.
It is reported that a farmer in Kinlochewe had his
cattle infected with that disease, and was unable to
heal them by ordinary means. He was told that
if he could get the heart of a man who did not know
his parents, and dip it in a tub of water, that he
would have his remedy. By sprinkling the water on
the cattle the trouble would be washed away. He
could not expect to get that, but the idea got hold of
him, and kept him on the alert for the charm. A
travelling pack merchant or pedlar happened to
come to his house one evening, and he was hospit-
ably entertained. In course of conversation the
man gave as much of his history as he remembered
at the time. Among other things, he said that he
knew nothing of his people, that he did not know
even the names of his parents. He got up next
morning and set out on his journey towards Torridon.
When about half-way through the glen he was over-
taken by his host of the previous evening who
demanded his life. The poor man said that he
might have all his goods without a struggle on

1 Recorded in a lecture by Mr. Alex. Munro, F.S.A., some years ago
for Sutherland.

2 Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness, vol. xxvi.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 277

his part if that was what he was after. But the
murderer told him plainly that he wanted no less
than his life, that he followed him for his heart
to cure his cattle. He took out his heart there and
then and prepared the remedy. It is said that the
cattle had been cured, but that the disease was
transferred to his family. Some of his descendants,
who inherited the transferred madness, were spotted
up to the middle of last century as families who were
under a more terrible ban than that of Gehazi." l

In Breadalbane " there is a tradition that, once
upon a time, when a pestilence raged among the
herds on the south side of Lochtay, a ghastly
tragedy was enacted. Actuated by a heathenish
desire to propitiate some evil spirit or other, the
people seized a poor 'gangrel body,' bound him
hand and foot, and placed him in the ford of Ard-
talnaig burn ... a little further up the stream than
the present bridge. All the cattle in that district
were then driven over his body, and the poor
creature's life was crushed out."2

A manuscript of Cormac's Glossary gives an
alternative, though unscientific, derivation for the
name Emain : " No em ab ema [al/ma] id est sanguine
quia ema sanguis est. Uin i.e. unus quia sanguis
unius hominis [effusus est] in tempore conditionis
ejus." In other words, the wrong etymology there
given is a suggestion that the word ' Emuin, Emain '
signifies ' the blood of one,' because the blood of one
man was poured forth at the founding of Emain.

1 Rev. K. Macdonald of Applecross, Social and Religious Life in the
Highlands, p. 31 (Edinburgh, 1902).

2 Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness, vol. xxv. p. 1 29.

278 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

The need of immolating a human being to ensure
the stability of a building Dr. Stokes notes in his
edition of Cormac as a superstition still current in
India. Grimm tells us that in 1843, during the
building of the new bridge at Halle, it was a popular
superstition that one required to bury a child in the
foundation, and he cites similar beliefs among the
Danes, Greeks, and Servians. We find a parallel
belief in Britain, as is recorded by Nennius. When
Guorthigern wishes to build Dinas Emris his druids
say " Nisi infantem sine patre invenies et occidetur
ille, et arx a sanguine suo aspergatur, nunquam
aedificatur in aeternum." A child without a father
has to be found and slain, and the fortress is to
be built in such an one's blood if the building is
to stand. The Irish-Gaelic Nennius expressly says
that Guorthigern, with his hosts and with his druids,
traversed all the south of the island of Britain until
they arrived at Guined, and they searched all the
mountains of Herer and there found a Dinn (Dun
or fort) over the sea, and a very strong locality
fit to build on ; and his druids said to him : " Build
here thy fortress," said they, " for nothing shall ever
prevail against it." Builders were then brought
thither, and they collected materials for the fortress,
both stone and wood, but all these materials were
carried away in one night ; and materials were thus
gathered thrice and thrice carried away. And he
asked of his druids : " Whence is this evil ? " said he.
And the druids said : " Seek a son whose father
is unknown, kill him, and let his blood be sprinkled
upon the Dun, for by this means only it can be
built." Messengers were sent by him throughout

HUMAN SACRIFICES 279

the island of Britain to seek for a son without a
father ; and they searched as far as Magh Eillite, in
the territory of Glevisic, where they found boys
a-hurling ; and there happened a dispute between
two of the boys, so that one said to the other :
"O man without a father, thou hast no good at
all." The messengers asked: " Whose son is the
lad to whom this is said ? " Those on the hurling
green said: "We know not," said they; " his
mother is here." They asked of his mother whose
son the lad was. The mother answered : " I know
not that he hath a father, and I know not how
he happened to be conceived in my womb at all."
So the messengers took the boy with them to
Guorthigern, and told him how they found him. On
the next day the army was assembled that the
boy might be killed. And the boy was brought
before the king, and he said to the king: "Where-
fore have they brought me to thee?" said he. And
the king said : " To slay thee and to butcher thee,
and to consecrate this fortress with thy blood [dod
marbudsa, ar se, ocus dod coscrad ocus do cosergud
in duin sea dod fhuil]." The boy said : " Who
instructed thee in this?" "My Druids," said the
king. M Let them be called hither," said the boy.
And the druids came. The boy said to them :
"Who told you that this fortress could not be built
until it was first consecrated with my blood ? ' And
they answered not.1

Dr. Todd seems of opinion that the practice of
auspicating the foundation of cities, temples, or other
solemn structures was not of remote antiquity, and

1 Todd's ed. of Nennius, p. 95.

280 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

throws some doubt upon parallel instances from a
ninth century compilator, Johannes Malala, who
records that at the foundation of Antioch, Selecus
Nicator erected a pedestal and statue of the virgin
Aemathe sacrificed as the Fortune of the city, as he
likewise is said to have done at the foundation of
Laodicea in Syria, where the walls were dug in the
track of the blood of a wild boar, and a virgin named
Agave is said to have been sacrificed and a brazen
statue erected to her as the fortune of the city. But
Dr. Todd emphasises the point that the narrative in
Nennius has this distinction, that repeated failures
had shown the necessity of some piacular rite
wherein it more nearly agrees with the legend of
St. Odran (Oran) of Iona. It is quite true that the
story of St. Odran's self-sacrifice is unnoticed in
Adamnan's Life of Columcille, a story which Bishop
Reeves calls "curious and not very creditable."
Historic fact, however, has an interest entirely apart
from quality of action, the belief has to be accounted
for quite apart from what actually happened to St.
Odran. It is not possible that any such thing
happened in Columcille's following, but the legend
points to the popular folk-belief in what was expected
to occur.

But the Gaelic 'Life of Columcille ' in the Book of
Lisntore, dating from a late age when legend was
more active with Columcille's memory than even the
embellishments of Adamnan's age could tolerate, we
read how the saint reached Iona on the night of
Pentecost. Two bishops who dwelt in the land
came to expel him from it. But God revealed to
Colomb Cille that they were not bishops in truth.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 281

Wherefore they left the island when he told them
of their own conclusion and their account. Said
Colomb Cille to his household:1 "It is well for
us that our roots should go under the ground here."
And he said : " It is permitted to you, that some
one of you should go under the earth here or
under the mould of the island to consecrate it."
Odran rose up readily and this he said : " If I
should be taken," saith he, " I am ready for that."
"O Odran!" saith Colomb Cille, "thou shalt have
the reward thereof. No prayer shall be granted
to anyone at my grave, unless it is first asked of
thee." Then Odran went to heaven. Colomb
founded a church by him afterwards.

This narrative cannot be historical, inasmuch
as Odran is not included in the oldest list of
Columcille's companions, and the Annals of the Four
Masters record his death in 548 i.e, fifteen years
before Columcille came to Hy. Yet the narrative
undoubtedly is a piece of folk-belief. It is hard for
men to realise that the gods as spoken of in legends
really never had actual outward existence, great as
is the part they played in the history of man and of
mind. The Divine Life was ever perfect and One.
And a narrative like this, while not historically true
to fact, is historically true as a record of belief, and

1 Is maith dhun ar fremha do dul fon talmain sunn ocus doraidh :
As cead duib nech eicin uaibh do dul fon talmain sunn, no fo huir na
hinnsi-sea, dia coisecrad. Adracht suas Odrdn erlathad ocus is ed
adubairt : 'Diamgabthasa' ol se. As erlam learn sin, a Odhrain ar
Colomb Cille. Rat-fia a logh. Ni tibirter idge do neoch icom lighi-
se minab fortsa iarfaigter ar tos.' Luid iarom Odran do chum nime.
Fothaigis Colum eclais aice iarsin (Stokes' Lives of Saints from Bk.
of Lismore, p. 30).

282 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

points to a possible time when there was an actual
basis of fact. I do not know when certain legends
arose which detail the story of a beggar woman,
who while passing the way at the time was buried
alive under the foundation-stone of a Highland
manse I know well, along with a live cock. It was
believed, and yet the building did not exist at the
date specified, although the legend may have been
transferred from another building more than a mile
away, which latter could have come by this associa-
tion from a pre-Christian sacred place. In like
spirit it is still related that Odran had offered him-
self in sacrifice, for the walls of Columcille's first
edifice in Iona fell down as soon as built owing to
evil agencies. Oran was duly interred alive, and
spoke as follows to Colomb Cille who on the third
day went to the grave to see how his friend fared,
when he was told by St. Oran

Chan eil am bas 'na iongantas
No Ifrinn mar a dh'aithrisear
i.e.

Death is no wonder
Nor is Hell as it is said.

Shocked by such a speech Colomb Cille called out :
uir, uir air suil Odhrain ! mun labhair e tuille
comhraidh i.e. Earth, Earth, on Oran's eye ! lest he
talk more. St. Oran was credited with laxer views
than Columcille, if we follow the version of his
answer which Sheriff Nicolson got from Tiree :

Chan eil an t-Eug 'na annas

s chan eil Ifrinn mar a dubhrar ;

Cha teid math am muthadh
's cha bhi olc gun dioladh.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 283

i.e.

Death is nothing strange,

Nor Hell as has been said ;
Good will not perish,

Nor evil be unpunished.

These theologians of Tiree may never have heard
of Aristophanes, but their irony reminds one of the
passage in The Frogs where, pointing out the differ-
ence between the old style of officials and the new,
he says that nowadays State offices are filled with
the pharmakos or human scape-goat, from which we
infer the existence of such similar practices among
the Greeks :

Any chance man that we come across
Not fit in old days for a pharmakos

These we use

And these we choose
The veriest scum, the mere refuse.

To expel a pharmakos or human scape-goat was
among the Greeks a symbolic act of purification.
If a calamity, a Greek historian tells us, overtook
a city, whether it were famine or pestilence, or any
other mischief, they led forth, as though to a sacri-
fice, the most unsightly of them all as a purification
and a remedy to the suffering city. They set the
sacrifice in the appointed place, and gave him cheese
with their hands and a barley cake and figs, and
seven times they smote him with leeks and wild
figs and other wild plants. Finally they burnt him
with fire with the wood of wild trees, and scattered
the ashes to the sea and to the winds, for a
purification.1

^zetzes, quoted in J. Harrison's Pro I. to Study of Greek Religion,
p. 98.

284 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Later on I shall speak of the Sin-Eater under
Funeral- Rites. Here suffice it to say I am reminded
of the Gaelic phrase : cuir am mach am Bas,
referring to the expulsion of death in a symbolic
act, as is often the case in primitive ritual. Death
is symbolised as an old woman or cailleach, who
undergoes the process of expulsion by representa-
tion. The survival of the ceremony, although the
Gaelic phrase is not given, is described in Stewart's
Highland Superstitions and Amusements :l " Some
wiseacre by some lucky chance discovered that at
this festive season (Xmas), when the asperity of its
character is probably much softened, even relentless
death himself can be compromised with on very
advantageous terms. By the sacrifice of an old
woman, or any other body whom he wished in a
better world, and whom, by the following process,
he chose to send to it, death was debarred from
any farther claim to himself, or his friends, until
the return of the next anniversary. He went to
the wood this night, fetched home the stump of
some withered tree, which he regularly constituted
the representative of some person of the description
. . . mentioned, and whose doom was inevitably
fixed by the process, without resort or appeal.
Such a simple mode of obtaining security from a
foe whom everybody fears, could not be supposed
to fall into desuetude ; and the custom is therefore
retained, whatever faith may exist as to its utility,
in some parts of the country even to this day."

Death as expelled through symbol in the High-
lands may be paralleled by the old Greek rite of the

^d. 185 1, p. 166.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 285

' expulsion of hunger/ which Plutarch speaks of as
an ancestral sacrifice. This riddance or expulsion
did not amount to a purification ceremony, but was
magical. A household slave was beaten with rods
of agnus castus — a plant of cathartic quality — and
driven outside, with the words, " Out with hunger,
in with health and wealth." The nearest thing to
this in the Highlands is when, on the occasion of
death visiting a house, one who condoles is given
the answer at times : Is math nach en t-acras thainig,
1 'tis well it is not Hunger that has visited us.'

Where human life is required for the prevention
of an evil we come upon the principle of vicarious
sacrifice. Among literary references I note that
St. Finnian of Clonard " died on behalf of the people
of the Gaels that they might not all die of the
Buidhe Chonaill."1 In the tale of the Expulsion of
the Deisi the druid of one of the opposing armies
sacrifices himself to secure victory to his own side.2
Eimine Ban and forty-nine of his monks vicariously
sacrificed themselves by voluntary death in order to
save Bran ua Faelain, King of Leinster, and forty-
nine Leinster chiefs from the pestilence which was
then desolating Leinster.3

Of the idea that one must die to secure the

1 Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. Stokes, p. 82.

2 Cf. Anecdota from Irish MSS. vol. i. p. 23, where we read :
Loiscther an dlai-sea, or si, 7 tabarthar b6 mael derg duind 7 ni frith
an b6. Maith, or an drai dona Deissib. Ragadsa a richt na b6 do ma
guin ar sairi dom chlaind co brath.

The point is that when the red hornless cow was not forthcoming a
Druid of the D£isi says : " Good ! I will go in the shape {i.e. instead)
of the cow to suffer (lit. to my wounding) in behalf of the liberty of my
clan for ever."

3 EriUy iv. 39.

286 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

recovery of another a striking instance is given in
Leslie Forbes's Early Races of Scotland. When
Hector Monro, XVI Ith Baron of Fowlis, was ill in
1588, a witch whose amulet- water had proved in
vain informed him that he could not recover unless
in the words of the indictment, " the principal man
of his bluid should die for him." Another authentic
instance, that of Hugh Mackay of Halmadary, I
have quoted elsewhere.1 Insane imagination and
religious frenzy had transformed a black cock into a
satanic spirit. The decision to offer Hugh Mackay's
son as a sacrificial victim was prevented by the
humanity of a girl who had reason enough left to
protect the child : when the roof was taken off the
house at the instance of outsiders the spell of mad-
ness was broken. Afterwards the Good-Man of
Halmadary and his associates showed sincere repen-
tance and shame, as well they might ! But the
principle on which they went was parallel to the
belief which Caesar attributes to the Gauls that
unless the life of a man be offered for the life of a
man the mind of the immortal gods cannot be
propitiated. In Gadhelic verse the Dinnshenchas
of Mag Slecht tells of the great idol Cromm Cruaich :
' 'to him they used to offer the firstlings of every
issue and the chief scions of every clan." Around
him were four times three stone idols (tri hidail chloch
fo chethair).

" It made every tribe be without peace.
Twas a sad evil !
Brave Gaels used to worship it.

1 Norse Influence 071 Celtic Scotland, p. 70, where one should read N.
Hjalmar + G. airigh.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 287

From it they would not without tribute ask

To be satisfied as to their portion of the hard world.

He was their god

• • • •

To him without glory

They would kill their piteous wretched offspring

With much wailing and peril

To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich.

Milk and corn

They would ask from him speedily

In return for one-third of their healthy (or whole) issue :

Great was the horror and the scare of him

To him

Noble Gaels would prostrate themselves ;

From the worship of him with many manslaughters

The plain is called Mag Slecht." 1

Tradition still faintly whispers of sacrifices at the
altar stone of Callernish Temple in Lewis : and
there are folk-surmises to say the least as regards
some other ' Druid ' circles on the mainland.
Analogy would point to similar rites as those in
honour of Cromm. The poem quoted states that to
the coming of Patrick "there was worshipping of
stones."2 Such incidents as have been referred
to seem to show that sacrifice is a complex act of
offering which embraces commensality and purifica-
tion with their train of joyous thoughts and acts ;
giving with a joyous expectation of being given
unto ; propitiation with the fearsome hope of averting
ills ; culminating in the case of humanity in the
thought of substitution, or life for life. Doubtless

1 Trans, by Kuno Meyer, Voyage of&ran, ii. 304.

2Adra for clacha=adhradh air clachaibh ; cf. current Highland
phrase well known to me : ga innseadh dha na clachan, " telling it to
the stones." That arrested the evil spoken of from coming on the
person to whom it was mentioned.

288 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

there was much variation over the Celtic areas, while
for Gaul Caesar's account1 holds. "The nation of
the Gauls is extremely devoted to superstitious rites;
and on that account they who are troubled with
unusually severe diseases, and they who are engaged
in battles and dangers, either sacrifice men as victims,
or vow that they will sacrifice them, and employ the
Druids as the performers of those sacrifices, because
they think that unless the life of a man be offered
for the life of a man the mind of the immortal gods
cannot be rendered propitious, and they have sacri-
fices of that kind ordained for national purposes.
Others have figures of vast size; the limbs of which,
formed of osiers, they fill with living men, which
being set on fire the men perish enveloped in the
flames. They consider that the oblation of such as
have been taken in theft or in robbery, or any other
offence, is more acceptable to the immortal gods ;
but when a supply of that class is wanting, they
have recourse to the oblation of even the innocent."
In a previous chapter Caesar tells that to be
interdicted from the sacrifices was among the Gauls
a most heavy punishment : " Those who have been
thus interdicted are esteemed in the number of the
impious and the criminal : all shun them and avoid
their society and conversation, lest they receive
some evil from their contact; nor is justice
administered to them when seeking it, nor is any
dignity bestowed on them."2 Sacrifice was thus a
most vital bond. Procopius,8 in referring to the
inhabitants of Thule, relates that they regarded their

1 De Bello Galileo, vi. 16; trans, in Bohn's Library.

2 Caesar, De Bello Galileo, vi. 13. 3De Bello Gothico, ii. 15.

HUMAN SACRIFICES 289

first prisoner of war as the best : the victim was
hanged from a tree, cast among thorns, or otherwise
horribly done to death. Plutarch1 particularly
emphasises that with the Gauls human sacrifices
was the most perfect form of sacrifice. This is
confirmed by a rite among the Gauls of Massilia
(Marseilles) of which we learn from Servius's Com-
mentary on Vergil.2 As often as there was a
pestilence one of the poor offered himself to be
hospitably entertained at the public expense and on
the choicest of foods for a full year. Thereafter,
having been decorated with boughs and raiment
such as were used at sacrifices, he was led through
the whole city amid execrations that he might take
upon himself the sins (niala) of the whole community,
and was thus thrown down from a height as a pro-
pitiatory sacrifice.

All these observances in Celtic lands hang more
or less together in the matter of fundamental ideas.
The gods must not be treated with neglect ; the
right social observances constitute religion, which is
a stated carefulness of rites that is the opposite to
neglect. The individual must not come empty-
handed for the primitive god is often a magnified
human chief in his ways ; 3 he must know how to
appease the angry deity ; he may even feel he has
to slay the god's human representative, while his
vigour has not suffered decay. Whether it be

lDe Superstit. 13, p. 171 B. 2Aen. iii. 57, Auri Sacra fames.

3 The late Mrs. Mackellar {nie Cameron) used to quote the phrase of
an old clanswoman who, as she was dying, heard of the return of
Locheil, whom she described as : our own great god of the Camerons !
Cf. ' the god Mourie,' really St. Maolrubha.

290 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

through the communal-sacrificial meal, or through
identification of himself with the nature of the
animal offered, or by imitation of such identity as in
the case of the man clad in cow-skin,1 or by human
sacrifice, it is only thus that he attains to magic
contact with what is taken for divine. The divine
touch puts all fear to rest. The essence of sacrifice
is contact in the sense that ceremonial contact
with sacred objects brings strength. A word may
bring one into such contact ; to partake of particles
of the sacred object begets contact ; to place a stone
on the cairn where the funeral procession rests
brings one into ceremonial contact with the spirit of
the deceased, who of old was thought to live on in
the body and rest where it rested. Or one may
even get into contact with the spirit of the living, as
when one makes a vow after missing any article of
value that should it be recovered one will give a gift
or its equivalent to the saint of the place. This is
the West Sutherland rite of putting a shilling (or
whatever it be) on a good man. With the element
of contact which brings strength there goes the
possibility of compulsion or magical control, and
hence arises a code of things to be avoided as well
as done.

The things proper to be done are positive enact-
ments full of wonder-working power ; most of the
religious ritual is of this sort, for there is a binding
of the object of one's faith, which in Old Irish is
tress, 'on-standing,' surviving in modern amharus,
i.e. an + tress, 'non-faith or doubt,' and this attitude
throughout a series of ceremonial acts is summed up

1 Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen in Eighteenth Century, ii. 438.

POSITIVE MAGIC

291

in the attitude of a supreme act of trust, crabhadh ;
Old Irish crabud, 'faith,' Cymric crefydd, Sanscrit
vi-crambh, 'trust.' The magic or wonder-working
element at the basis of even the most rudimentary
cult abides throughout and survives in the highest
religion on its ceremonial side where the transition
is made to awe. How else can we account for the
Gaelic ortka, from the Latin orationem, 'prayer,'
being now the current word for ' spell ' : e.g. in
speaking of a witch one says : chuir i an ortti ann}
i.e. 'she put a magic spell on him.' There is also
the native Gadhelic ubaidh, ubag, 'a charm,' Old
Irish upta, 'fascination,' Manx obbee, 'sorcery,' all
ultimately from a root ba, 'to speak.' Yet prayer
in its essence precedes magic. The rudiments of a
voice of conscience speak or whisper in the manadh
or ' warning,' and of old it was felt that natural signs
follow to corroborate a just verdict. Thus we read
in Keating,1 for example : " When Fachtna delivered
an unjust judgement, if it was in the autumn he
delivered it, the fruit fell to the ground that night
in the country in which he was. But when he
delivered a just judgement, the fruit remained in
full on the trees ; or if in the spring he delivered an
unjust judgement, the cattle forsook their young in
that country. Morann, son of Maon, gave no
judgement without having the Morann collar round
his neck, and when he gave an unjust judgement
the collar grew tight round his neck, and when he
gave a just judgement the collar stretched out over
his shoulders. . . . And so it was with several

1 Irish Texts Society ed. vol. iii. p. 35; cf. Bruiden mate Dareo

in New Ireland Review -, Oct. 1906, p. 10 1, §29.

292 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Pagan authors, they were subject to geasa (pro-
hibitions, tabus), preventing them from partiality in
history or judgement."

Surrounded by so many dangers, it was un-
avoidable that even in rudimentary religion there
should arise a code of what was ' crossed ' or for-
bidden (air a chrosadk), or tabu, not to be lightly
approached, — hence a series of negative precepts or
prohibitions.

It is forbidden (tha e air a chrosadk) for a young
lad or a young woman to sweep out the room in
which a corpse has been. This should be done by a
woman who is past child-bearing. The idea is that
the influence of Death is about and may endanger
the potency of the developing life ; one is reminded
of the practice in the Congo region, where they
abstain for a whole year from sweeping out the
house where a man has died, lest the dust should
offend the ghost ;* as also of the Albanian custom of
refraining on the day of the funeral from sweeping
the place where the corpse lay.2 In the High-
lands it is forbidden for a male child to sweep the
floor and the hearthstone in a room where a death
has just been ;3 the sweepings seem as if in such
intimate consecration to the powers of death that
there is a danger of injuring the development of
virility. Take not the ashes from off the hearth,
the old folks used to say ; nothing else is so
* blasting' as to wipe the hearth clean. I would

1 Bastian, Mensch, ii. p. 323.

2Hahn, Albanesische Studien, i. p. 152.

3 Tha e air a chrosadh do leanabh gille an tigh a sguabadh an deigh
a bhais.

THE NEGATIVE CODE 293

prefer the fire to be alive thereon than not. Others
would cast a shower of ashes before them ere
entering. That's what the old folks would say:
I don't know if they were right, but there were
witches since the beginning of the world, and there
will be unto the end, so long as the world is a world,1
according to my authority.

Here is a series of things Taboo which the Rev.
A. Macdonald tabulated for the Isle of Eriskay and
its neighbourhood : It is not right to throw a comb
to a person ; do not throw a comb but at thine
enemy ;2 it is not right to bury a person on a Friday,
nor to kill a sheep on a Friday, nor to cut hair nor
pare nails on Friday or Sunday. It is not right to
plough on Good Friday, though it is allowable to
plant potatoes with a wooden dibble (ftleadhag) and
to rake the ground with the three-toothed wooden
hammer called a rake. It is not right to change
residence going from north to south except on
Monday, and when going from south to north one
should go on Saturday.3 It is not right to sew
clothes on Sunday : no man who has had his clothes
stitched on the Lord's Day will walk straight.4 If a

1 Na toir an luath dhe'n chagailt. Cha'n eil rud eile as gointe an
'chagailt a ghlanadh. Bu doch' leam-s' an teine bhi beo ann na'n
teine bhi as. Chuireadh feadhainn eile fras luathainn ann mus
tigeadh iad a steach. Sin theireadh an t-seann mhuinntir. Chan eil
fhios agam-s (prond: chan Tos a'm's) bheil e ceart. Bha buitsichean
ann bho (prond: fo) thoisich {sic) an t-saoghail, 's bidh gu 'dheireadh
fhad's bhios an saoghal 'na shaoghal.

2 Na tilg a chir ach orra ( = air do) namhaid. Cf. the comb-symbol
on old monuments.

3Imrig Sathurna mu thuath, imrig Luain mu dheas, 's ged nach
biodh agam ach an t-uan 's ann Di-luain a dh'f halbhainn leis.

4 Cha dian duine ceum comhnard is greim an Ddmhnaich 'na, aodach.

294 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

woman tells you that the new moon is visible, it is
not right to go and look at it ; when making the
frith, if a woman be seen she is the omen of some
untoward event.

It is not right to count the number of teeth in a
comb. It means that you are numbering the days
of your life.

It is not right to be touching the chain (slabhruidh)
over the fire. It is said to be cursed. The devil is
called Am fear t/iair an t-slabhruidh, 'the man on
the chain.' I remember once when there was a talk
of a public official leaving the island of Uist that I
remarked that he might be replaced by a worse.
The reply was : ckdn urrainn gun tig mur a tig an
t-slabhruidh a nail buileach = ' such a one could not
come unless the chain break entirely.'

There was a man who noticed that his cows ceased
suddenly giving milk. He had a strong suspicion that
a woman in the neighbourhood was at the bottom
of the mischief. He went into her house one day
in her absence. He found nobody in but a little
innocent child, — the daughter of the woman in
question. He asked her if her mother gave her any
milk to drink. ' The child said Yes. Where does
your mother get the milk ? was the next query.
Bhiodh i ga bhleoghainn as an t-slabhruidh — * she
would be drawing it from the chain,' said the child.
Siuthad, a ghradhag, dian thusa mar a bhitheas i
^dianamh = ■ Come, darling, do you as she is in the
habit of doing/ The child did go and the milk came
from the chain. The man tore down the chain and
took it with him, and the lost toradh, ' milk produce,'
returned to him (Anne M'Intyre). There was a

THE NEGATIVE CODE 295

plant, the torannan or toradan, that was used as
being held able to prevent the milk being spirited
away.

To recover the toradh filched away. One plan is
to go to the house of the party suspected of taking
it, and to pull off the roof of his house as much
thatch and divot as he can with his two hands, and
to proceed home with this. Then a pot is put on
the fire and this thatch is thrown gradually on the
fire beneath the pot. In the pot is put the little
milk that has been left, and the thatch is kept
burning under it until it dries up. This brings the
toradh back.1 A male is preferable for the ceremony
of the thatch-snatching.

To a person who makes a very brief call and is in
a hurry to get away they say : An ann a dhiarraidk
teine thainig thu, i.e. ' is it to seek fire you have
come ? '

It is not right to mend or stitch clothes while the
clothes are on the person. It interferes with the
rights of the dead, to whom alone belongs the
privilege of having their death linens sewed upon
the body (Mary Ann Campbell, 1895).

It is not right (ceart) for a man to cut his own hair
or even part of it. Whatever it means the meaning
has reference ' to raising the scissors above one's
own breath ' (togail an t-siosar os cionn analach).
Perhaps it refers to cutting the breath of life which
is the thread of life (do. do.).

1 Other means used were (a) putting milk into an egg-shell : if
carried to the house of an evil-doer the milk would curdle ; (6) milking
three drops from the ewes of the suspected evil-doer ; then the useless
milk would get all right ; (c) boiling the cattle's urine. Trans. Garl.
Soc. Inverness, Vol. 26, pp. 50 and 49.

296 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

It is not right to return to the meal-chest the
leavings of, meal that may be on the table when
baking (ckdn eil e ceai't an fhalaid a thilleadh
dhdn chistidh).

It is not right to be humming a song while baking
{ckdn eil e ceart a bhi ri gnodhan orain an am a bhi
fuine).

It is not right to leave the band on the spinning-
wheel when you are setting it past for the night.
The sign of the cross should be made over it.

It is not right to card or spin or work in wool on
Saturday night. It is said that a woman who was
twisting threads with a spinning jenny on Saturday
night had her forefinger and middle finger joined
together ever after, these being the fingers that
would be used.

It is not right to spin if there be a corpse in the
same township.

It is not right to take fire out of a house where
there is a child who has not got teeth yet. It is
said that the child will never get teeth if the fire be
taken away.

It is not right for a woman to comb her hair at
night. Every hair that she loses will get entangled
about the feet of a relative who is sailing in a ship
(chdn eil gas a dlifhalbhas asaibh nach bidh dol
mit 'chasan duine bhuineas duibh ann san t-saghach *).

It is not right to lose the buarach or the spancel
tie that goes about the cows' feet at milking time.
It is considered by the older people as something
holy and venerable. The best are made of horse
hair. Some, after milking the cattle, take the ties in

1 Localism for soitheach.

THE NEGATIVE CODE 297

their hands while walking after the cattle and have a
fixed spot for hanging them up on their return from
driving the cattle out. The reason was that a
person finding the tie {buarach) might get the
toradh, or produce, of your cattle.

It is not right at milking time if a person passes
who is suspected of having the evil eye to answer
him even though he addresses you. Your silence,
or the animosity signified thereby, has an influence
in checking any harm that might come from him.

It was not right to make a cake of the kind known
as Bonnach Boise(2&\), i.e. a small cake shaped and
made on the palm of the hand, without making a
hole in the middle of it. The reason assigned is
that thus the fairies would not be able to take it away
if it were so marked (John Smith, Jun., S. Boisdale).
Possibly the origin of the ceremony is due to the
time when certain placenta were used as emblems in
phallic worship (Father Allan).

It was a source of danger to the soul of a warrior
if he fell in battle fasting. Such was the case with
one of the Macleans of Lochbuy, in Mull, known as
Eogkann a chinn bhig, ' Eoghan of the Little Head,'
whose grave is in Iona. His spirit found no rest
and his apparition (tatbkse) has been fabled for 300
years to have been seen : he rides his mettlesome
horse as he did when he fell in battle, in consequence
of his having fought on the fatal day without having
broken his fast (thuit e na thrasg)}

The multitude of restrictions are so numerous that
it would serve no purpose to further amplify the
above ; suffice it to refer to the curious restrictions

1 N. Macleod in Teachdaire Gae/ac/i, Aug. 1830, p. 93.

298 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

on the old Irish kings, derived probably from the
earlier ages of the priest-kings. The sun might not
rise at Tara on the King of Ireland in his bed, with
which compare Ossian's advice to his mother ; x he
was not to alight on a Wednesday at Magh Breagh,
nor traverse Magh Cuilinn after sunset : on Monday
after May-day (Bealltuine) he must not go in a ship;
the Tuesday after Samhuin he was not to leave the
track of his army upon Ath Maighne. The King
of Leinster was forbidden to do certain acts on
Mondays and Wednesdays. The King of Ulster
might not listen to the fluttering of the birds at
Linn Sailech after sunset [because he had some bird-
ancestor ?] ; might not celebrate a certain bull-feast
nor drink of the water of Bo-Neimhidh between two
darknesses. The King of Connaught might not sit
on the grave mound of the wife of Maine in harvest
time, nor go on a grey steed in a speckled garment
to Dal Chais, nor conclude a treaty concerning his
palace at Cruachan after having made peace at
All- Hallows.2

Even before the Christian mission had familiarised
the Gadhelic tribes with the Latin peccatum, which
has become peacadh, ■ sin,' the language testifies to
burdens which must be inferred to have pressed
heavily if we may judge from the native Gadhelic
word fine, 'sin': ar fine glossed .i. ar pectha in
Sanctain's Hymn, as to which Stokes thinks cog-
nation with Latin vieo, vi-tium, Anglo-Saxon widl
seems probable.3 Irish cean, ciony means ' trans-

1 See previous chapter sub Deer Parentage of Ossian.
2Cf. The Books of Rights, ed. J. O'Donovan.
3 Thes. Pal-Hib. ii. 351 ; K.Z. 41, 385.

THE BURDENS OF THE SOUL 299

gression, fault, sin.' Another word, immorbus, is
frequent in the sense of ' trespass, sin, scandahitn.'1
The magicians spell (brtha, ubaidh, obaidh, etc.), the
wizard's word (facal), the incantation-charm (eo/as)
of native medicine-men, the sacrifices (wbairtean) of
Druids were alike impotent and vain, but were not
and could not be abandoned until it was brought
home to the more thoughtful minds that magical
ceremonies and incantations did not really effect the
results they were designed to produce. The spirit
of the hymn ascribed to St. Patrick in the energy
with which it abandons the nature-worship, and the
spirit of the scathing words of Gildas as to a blind
people that worshipped rivers and stocks and stones
could not become readily diffused among the folk.
Nor is it still ; the eo/as or charm is resorted to,
and in this parish in which I write there lived quite
recently a man who was credited with the ability of
stopping a flow or issue of blood by a spell ; and
another not long deceased had a like power ascribed
to him in Assynt ; while there are still living more
than one in Ross-shire who will transmit this secret
as carefully as the Druid wizards of old, passing it
by word of mouth, with necessary restrictions, from
father to daughter, and so forth through a continual
alternation from man to woman, from woman to
man. Eblas Casga Fo/a? ' the charm for staunching
blood,' was known in the Isle of Man ; Moore
gives a charm to staunch the horse's blood : " Three
Maries went to Rome, the spirits of the church

1 Windisch's Worterbuch for references.

2 Cf. the charms of healing put into the wounds of Cuchulainn.
Faraday's trans, of the Tain, p. 84-5.

300 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

stiles and the spirits of the houghs or sea-cliffs (ny
Keimee as ny Cughtee), Peter and Paul, a Mary of
them said, stand ; another Mary of them said, walk ;
the other Mary of them said, may this blood stop (or
heal) as the blood stopped which came out of the
wounds of Christ : me to say it and the Son of Mary
to fulfil it." Another Manx charm to stop blood I
give in Moore's translation : " Three godly men came
from Rome — Christ, Peter, and Paul. Christ was
on the cross, his blood flowing, and Mary on her
knees close by. One took the enchanted one in
his right hand, and Christ drew a cross over him.
Three young women came over the water, one of
them said, ' up ' ; another one said, ' stay ' ; and
the third one said, ' I will stop the blood of man
or woman/ Me to say it, and Christ to do it, in
the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost."1

The resort to similar charms is by no means quite
a thing of the past. I gave in my Leabhar nan
Gleann a short charm for toothache which I know
to have been believed in in my own time. The
exorciser — a very decent shepherd — invariably re-
sorted to a wood and made a notch in a tree, which
is a reminiscence of the cult of tree spirits and of the
belief in the tree-soul. And I well recollect a certain
Barbara Ghriogail (sic) who was possessed of a
small crystal pebble which possessed some magnetic
property, as it was often of use in removing things
from the eyes of cattle and of persons. She practised
a charm — Eblas a Chronachaidh — which I already
gave. These are charms for averting evil, and come

1 Moore, Folk Lore of the Isle of Man, 98.

THE BURDENS OF THE SOUL 301

under the head of airoTpoTn], or i averting ' ; the
Latins personified the spirits that controlled this
process into Dii averruncii, 'the gods that avert
evil/ In the averting ritual water had to be lifted
in a wooden ladle at a stream over which the living
and the dead passed ; it was not suffered to touch
the ground, and when taken up it was done in the
name of the Sacred Trinity ; silver coins were put
into the ladle and also a copper coin ; the whole was
blessed with the sign of the cross, and according to
a ritual of divination it was thought that a wise-
person could tell whether it was a male's or a female's
eye that had been the bewitching agent. Thereafter
the patient was sprinkled with some of the lustral
water, and what remained over was dashed against
a huge boulder-stone not likely ever to be moved.
Evil was thus transferred for ever to the stone, and
the ' evil eye ' was lifted from off the sufferer. On
the other hand, the opposite process could take
place, and a transference of virtue be effected : rites
connected with the biting of the tearnadh> or ' after-
birth' (see Ch. I.), may be cited in illustration; a
simple case is that of getting the razor with which a
person well-to-do has committed suicide, which is the
magic means of transferring the luck of the dead to
the happy possessor through ' contact ' ; perhaps one
may adduce the possession of a caul — or thin mem-
brane covering a child's head at birth — which in the
Isle of Man and elsewhere was supposed to be
a preventive against shipwreck and drowning.
Similarly in West Ross-shire water drunk from the
skull of a suicide — and a suicide ranks as a criminal
— was held to be a cure for epilepsy ; in East

302 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Inverness-shire it was held to bring good luck and
to be a cure for toothache.

A proper witness for West Ross is the late Rev.
Kenneth Macdonald of Applecross,1 who states :
"Another cure for epilepsy is a drink from the
skull of a suicide. One may be found in Torridon
on the west of Ross-shire still. Two years ago a
man from Shieldaig declared that he used the skull
himself for that purpose, and that he knew where it
was kept. They (i.e. the suicides) had to be buried
in some hole in a hill out of the sight of the sea. If
his grave could be seen from the sea it was supposed
to be enough to drive all fish from the coast. So
strong was this belief that cases are on record in
which the remains of suicides which had been buried
by their friends in their own burying-ground were
exhumed by the neighbours and removed to a spot
hidden out of the sighj of the sea. And yet by some
perversity of human nature the withered skull of a
suicide is supposed to be a blessing to mankind.
It would appear then that the Druid still lives and
competes with the evangelist in some localities.
The Druid of the first century made no secret of his
belief that human sacrifices were acceptable to the
gods. Criminals as a rule were used for this purpose.
And if a man was cannibal enough to eat a bit of the
victim's flesh, he by that act rose in the good-will of
heaven. He was supposed to have absorbed into
his system so much of the substance of what was
consecrated to God. He was in fact part of the
atonement and therefore had a special claim to the

1 Social and Religious Life in the Highlands, pp. 29, 30 (Edin.
1902).

THE BURDENS OF THE SOUL 303

blessings secured. Human sacrifices are now for-
bidden by the law of Britain and the druidical
Highland worshipper cannot got nearer participation
in the gruesome sacrificial feast than to lick the skull
of one of a class who would have been sacrificed to
Apollo had he lived 2000 years ago."

Mr. Macdonald was for many years Free Church
minister in Applecross and his testimony is indisput-
able. And there is the further witness of an authentic
writer which I may quote : "It was a popular belief
among the old people that a suicide buried within
sight of the sea drove away the he/rings for seven
years. Any person who came by his or her death in
this way was invariably buried behind the church.
I well remember as a child hearing a discussion about
the burial of a woman who ' put herself aside,' as it
is expressed in Gaelic. Her people, who were by
way of being superior to such beliefs, were anxious
that she should be buried in the family grave ; but
this was not at all relished by the community, and
after a good deal of wrangling she was interred in a
remote corner of the churchyard, well out of sight of
the sea.

"More than a generation ago, a certain Englishman,
who happened to be staying in our neighbourhood,
committed suicide, and in spite of all protests he was
buried by his relatives in full sight of the Loch. So
indignant were the natives at this violation of their
traditions that one night shortly afterwards, a party
of them disinterred him at midnight, carried the
remains away to another churchyard in an inland
parish ten miles away, and there re-buried him. It
must have been a very grim sort of performance ;

304 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

though grimmer still is another rite which to this
day is, I am told, practised sub rosa in connection
with this self-same person. It is, I believe, a fact,
that the skull of this long-dead Englishman is lying
perdu somewhere about the churchyard, its where-
abouts being known only to one or two privileged
individuals, and is used by epileptics to drink out of ;
a common belief being that if these unfortunates
drink out of the skull of a suicide, the complaint will
be cured. Only last summer, a woman whose son
is afflicted in this way, said to me : ' Oh ! we have
done everything for him and tried every known cure ;
we had him prayed for in church and we even sent
down for so and so's skull (mentioning the English-
man) to see if it would do any good.' M

A correspondence on this subject, styled M A
Torridon Myth," took place in the Scotsman in 1901,
I think, and though the minister of the parish
denied both the superstition and the existence of
the skull, a correspondent finally declared that he
himself had drunk water from the skull as a cure
for epilepsy. The two points to be noted are (1)
that the suicide is a criminal, (2) that the criminal
is a sacrificed victim. Acting on this belief witches
in former ages endeavoured to get portions of the
body of such as were hung on the gallows in order
to make potent charms from them; and in 1591 in
Scotland a case was proved against these witches
of having opened graves at the devil's orders and
taken the fingers and toes of the dead " to make
ane powder of them, to do evil withal." In the
Middle Ages the Templars were said to have made

1 Folk-Lore for 1903, p. 370.

CRIME AND SACRIFICE 305

use of human skulls in their secret rites at midnight;
and the early Celts, if we believe Livy, used the
head of an enemy, i.e. in their idea, of a criminal
for secret purposes, while the Boii are said to have
used the head as the appropriate vessel out of which
to make drink offerings. A copan-cinn, i.e. the ' pan '
of the skull, I have in my own time heard spoken
of with subdued awe. A man touched with the
hand of one who had been hanged was, in Cornish
belief, held to be cured ; pickled and dried such was
a 'hand of glory' potent in discovering treasure.
For further cases compare Southey's Thalaba and
the Ingoldsby Legends. The skulls of slain enemies
were coveted trophies of valour, doubtless because
the luck and prowess of the dead were thus secured.
The criminal, too, was slain sacrificially to take the
place of ' devoted ' persons ; and it is likely that it
was from personating the latter class that in most
human sacrifices the victims were criminals. These,
as they had not completed their cycle of life — and
life was held to be a constant or complete quantity —
had such virtues left which constituted a ' luck ' to
be transmitted. But before the criminal life was
accepted there was the earlier stage of certain ones
' devoted ' to the god ; I think of the ritual of certain
Gaulish priestesses on an island at the mouth of the
Loire. No man durst visit this isle of women ; it
had a roofed temple, which the women annually
unroofed, but it had to be re-roofed before sunset.
Each woman brought on her shoulders a burden of
the roofing materials, and if any one suffered her
burden to fall to the ground she was torn to pieces
instantly by her companions and her mangled

3o6 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

remains carried round the temple. See the account
in Rhys's Hibbert Lectures, following Strabo.
Another account in Pomponius Mela adds the trait
that these perpetual virgins could rouse the sea
and wind by their incantations, turn themselves into
whatever animal form they chose, cure diseases, and
were 'devoted' to the services of voyagers only who
have set out on no other errand than to consult them
(Mela, iii. 6). There was a witch in Assynt, near
Drumbeg, known as M6r Bhdn, who had a similar
gift of raising wind for becalmed sailors, and her
memory is still fresh among the people.1 In the
isle of Gigha, too, there was a similar 'witch.' The
tabu against any of the roofing material touching
the ground reminds me of the holy water got from
the Willock family in Strathnain, which lost its
virtue if the bottle containing it were allowed to
touch the ground before it reached the house where
it was sprinkled in the ritual of 'averting,' of
cronachadh or airoTpoin') in the widest sense, and the
water received its virtue through the wizard being
possessed of the bridle of the water-horse (srian an
eich uisge), ultimately the bridle of Manannan, who
had the gift of making himself invisible, as we read
at the end of Serglige Conculainn.

A violation of tabu suffices to cause criminality.
But I have pointed out that possession of the razor
of a suicide helps to transmit the luck he would
have had if he completed his span of life ; and there

1 Her grave is still pointed out, covered with flagstones in a lonely
spot where she is said to have been done to death by a number pf
young men. She entreated that her slayers should all die a violent
death, which tradition says was the case.

THE TRANSMISSION OF LUCK 307

is the reciprocal or complement to this belief when
for the good of a community the individual possessed
of greatest life-power is not suffered to complete his
life-span or end it in weakness. To prevent this
his life is taken from him, and such a ritual act was
liable in the reports of half-informed travellers to
assume the appearance of cannibalism. A current
explanation, treated at length in Mannhardt and in
J.G. Frazer's interesting works, is that the divinity or
spirit of vegetation, all-important to the community,
was incarnate in chief and priest and ' rain-king,'
and if such persons were allowed to die of weakness
and age the divine power would be lost to the com-
munity, which accordingly marks such persons as
1 devoted,' so that at stated periods they are put to
death and their power transmitted untarnished to
a successor. A man (or even animal, with some
peoples) could thus be slain as a god ; while, on the
other hand, a suicide criminal, or criminal as such,
could readily personate one ' devoted,' and to par-
take of any part of his members was to participate
in the divine life. A suicide's skull, as in close
touch with an uncompleted luck of life, would be
thought of as imparting divine virtue and be capable
of magic transmission by contact ; and by imbibing
the brain-particles with the water the epileptic's
minimum of life was put in the way of becoming a
maximum or normal.

Apart from this category, as having no ritual
association, I put such references as I note from
Keating, who says that in the reign of Loingseach
there was a famine for three years in Ireland, "so
that the people devoured one another there at this

308 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

time"1 (go m-bidis na daoine ag it he a chdile innte
an truth soin). Not alike is the reference to Eithne
Uathach, daughter of Congain, wife of Criomhthann,
son of Eanne Cinnsealach, King of Leinster, fostered
and " fed by the Deise on the flesh of infants (is ar
fheoil naoidhean do biathadh Zeis na Ddisibh i) that
she might grow up the more quickly ; for a certain
druid had foretold that they would get territory from
the man whose wife she would be."2 Here there
may be a reflex of the need of keeping the divine life
in the tribal representative at its fullest and highest.
It is not ordinary cannibalism, but a ritual act re-
flected on as possible for dark thought and for darker
practice on the lines of a dark and revolting belief.

(c) Faith- healing. Psychic suggestion associated
with stones and wells is very prominent in folk-
belief. Thus, when Burns's Highland Mary (Mary
Campbell) fell ill, her friends at Greenock supposed,
it is said, that she had come under the malign power
of the evil-eye. To avert this, seven smooth stones
were procured from the junction of two streams.
These were placed in milk, which, after being boiled,
was administered, but without success. There are
many still living who have heard mention at some
time or other of a pebble or crystal (griogag) and of
witch-stones (clachan buitseachd), to which various
virtues were ascribed in the Highlands.

Sacred stones linked with the cure of human ills
are at least as old as the days of Colum-Cille, so far
as written record among the Celts enables us to infer.
In the country of the Picts, says Adamnan, the
saint took a white stone from the river and blessed

1 Irish Texts Soc. ed. vol. iii. p. 143. 2 lb. vol. ii. p. 317.

PSYCHIC SUGGESTION

309

it for the working of certain cures, saying: M Behold
this white pebble by which God will effect the cure
of many diseases among this heathen nation." The
Druid Broichan, foster-father of King Brude, was
thereafter stricken with sickness as punishment for
having refused to free a female slave at Colum-
Cille's request. Having repented, he sent a message
expressing his readiness to do so, whereupon Colum-
Cille sent two of his company with the pebble, which
he blessed, saying: " If Broichan shall first promise
to set the maiden free, then at once immerse this
little stone in water and let him drink from it, and
he shall be instantly cured; but if he break his vow
and refuse to liberate her, he shall die that instant."
The captive was freed, and we read: "The pebble
was then immersed in water, and in a wonderful
manner, contrary to the laws of nature, the stone
floated on the water like a nut or an apple, nor, as
if it had been blessed by the holy man, could it be
submerged. Broichan drank from the stone as it
floated on the water, and, instantly returning from
the verge of death, recovered his perfect health and
soundness of body. This remarkable pebble, which
was afterwards preserved among the treasures of
the king, through the mercy of God effected the
cure of sundry diseases among the people, while it
in the same manner floated while dipped in water.
And what is very wonderful, when this stone was
sought for by those sick persons whose term of life
had arrived, it could not be found ; thus, on the very
day on which King Brude died, though it was sought
for, it could not be found in the place where it had
been previously laid."

3io THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Such sacred stones or charms were once exten-
sively used: faith in them is not yet quite extinct.1

The Loch mo Nair stone is egg-shaped, and u it
measures two inches in the long diameter and rather
over one and a half inch in the shorter, weighs exactly
four ounces, and has a specific gravity of 2*666, or
almost that of Aberdeen granite. The stone ex-
hibits a beautifully mottled cream and liver coloured
surface, with delicate touches and streaks of pink
here and there on the cream colour."2 Gems and
crystals early impressed the imaginative faculty,
and the water-rounded pebble of white quartz is
associated with early burials so often, one has
remarked, as to point "to an underlying significancy
so highly esteemed as to have rendered it not un-
frequently to all appearance the only relic thought
worthy of preservation among the ashes of the
dead."3

The tradition as told by Dr. Gregor is : " Once
upon a time, in Strathnaver, there lived a woman
who was both poor and old. She was able to do
many wonderful things by the power of a white
stone which she possessed, and which had come to
her by inheritance. One of the Gordons of Strath-
naver, having a thing to do, wished to have both
her white stone and the power of it. When he saw
that she would not lend it, or give it up, he deter-
mined to seize her and to drown her in a loch.
The man and the woman struggled there for a long

1 For an account of charm-stones for curing cattle, see Proceed.
Soc. Scot. Antiq. for 1889-90, pp. 483-488.

2 A. Hutcheson, Proceed. Soc. Antiq. Scot, for May 14, 1900, p. 486.

3 See Mitchell as to the association of white pebbles with burials,
ib. vol. xviii. pp. 286-291.

PSYCHIC SUGGESTION 311

time, till he took up a heavy stone with which to
kill her. She plunged into the lake, throwing her
magic stone before her, and crying, ' May it do
good to all created things save a Gordon of Strath-
naver!' He stoned her to death in the water, she
crying, ' Manaar! Manaar!' (Shame! Shame!). And
the loch is called the Loch of Shame to this day."

The remainder of the account adds that the first
Monday in May and August (old style) were the
most popular days for frequenting the loch. The
patient was kept bound and half starved for about a
day previous, and immediately after sunset, on the
appointed day, he was taken into the middle of the
loch and there dipped. His wet clothes were then
exchanged for dry ones, and his friends took him
home in the full expectation of a cure. " Belief in
the loch's powers was acknowledged till recently,
and is probably still secretly cherished in the
district."1

I know this to be the case: a few years ago this
method of cure was tried. Here is an account by
an eye-witness :

"At a loch in the district of Strathnaver, county
of Sutherland, dipping in the loch for the purpose of
effecting extraordinary cures is stated to be a matter
of periodical occurrence, and the 14th August
appears to have been selected as immediately after
the beginning of August in the old style. The hour
was between midnight and one o'clock, and the
scene, as described by our correspondent, was
absurd . . . beyond belief, though not without a

1 Quoted in Mackinlay's Folklore of Scottish Lochs and Springs,
pp. 249-250.

312 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

touch of weird interest, imparted by the darkness of
the night and the superstitious faith of the people.
The impotent, the halt, the lunatic, and the tender
infant were all waiting about midnight for an immer-
sion in Lochmonaar. The night was calm, the stars
countless, and meteors were occasionally shooting
about in all quarters of the heavens above. A
streaky white belt could be observed in the remotest
part of the firmament. Yet with all this the night
was dark, so dark that one could not recognise friend
or foe but by close contact and speech. About fifty
persons, all told, were present near one spot, and I
believe other parts of the loch side were similarly
occupied, but I cannot vouch for this — only I heard
voices which would lead me so to infer. About •
twelve stripped and walked into the loch, performing
their ablutions three times. Those who were not
able to act for themselves were assisted, some of
them being led willingly and others by force, for
there were cases of each kind. One young woman,
strictly guarded, was an object of great pity. She
raved in a distressing manner, repeating religious
phrases, some of which were very earnest and
pathetic. She prayed her guardians not to immerse
her, saying that it was not a communion occasion,
and asking if they could call this righteousness or
faithfulness, or if they could compare the loch and
its virtues to the right arm of Christ. These utter-
ances were enough to move any person hearing
them. Poor girl ! what possible good could immer-
sion do to her? I would have more faith in a
shower-bath applied pretty freely and often to the
head. No male, so far as I could see, denuded

PRIMITIVE INXUBATION 313

himself for a plunge. Whether this was owing to
hesitation regarding the virtues of the water, or
whether any of the men were ailing, I could not
ascertain. These gatherings took place twice a
year, and are known far and near to such as put
belief in the spell. But the climax of the absurdity
was in paying the loch in sterling coin. Forsooth,
the cure cannot be effected without money cast into
the waters ! I may add that the practice of dipping
in the loch is said to have been carried on from
time immemorial, and it is alleged that many cures
have been effected by it."1

In the Statistical Account for the Parish of Farr,
written in August, 1834, the Rev. David M'Kenzie,
minister of the parish, notes that connected with its
antiquities he " may mention a few particulars re-
garding a loch in Strathnaver, about six miles from
the church, to which superstition has ascribed
wonderful healing virtues. The times at which
this loch came to be in repute with the sick cannot
now be ascertained. It must, however, have been
at a period of the history of this country when
superstition had a firm hold of the minds of all
classes of the community. The tradition as to the
origin of its healing virtues is briefly as follows:

"A woman, either from Ross-shire or Inverness-
shire, came to the heights of Strathnaver, pretending
to cure diseases by means of water into which she had
previously thrown some pebbles, which she carried
about with her. In her progress down the strath,
towards the coast, a man in whose house she lodged

1 From the Inverness Courier, quoted in the Celtic Magazine for
1877-78.

314 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

wished to possess himself of the pebbles ; but, dis-
covering his design, she escaped, and he pursued.
Finding at the loch referred to that she could not
escape her pursuer any longer, she threw the pebbles
into the loch, exclaiming in Gaelic, Mo nar, that is,
'shame,' or 'my shame.' From this exclamation
the loch received the name which it still retains,
Loch-mo-nar, and the pebbles are supposed to have
imparted to it its healing efficacy. There are only
four days in the year on which its supposed cures can
be effected. These are the first Monday (old style)
of February, May, August, and November. During
February and November no one visits it ; but in
May and August numbers from Sutherland, Caith-
ness, Ross-shire, and even from Inverness-shire and
Orkney, come to this far-famed loch. The cere-
monies through which the patients have to go are
the following: They must all be at the loch side
about twelve o'clock at night. As early on Monday
as one or two o'clock in the morning the patient is
to plunge, or to be plunged, three times into the
loch; is to drink of its waters; to throw a piece of
coin into it as a kind of tribute ; and must be away
from its banks so as to be fairly out of sight of its
waters before the sun rises, else no cure is supposed
to be effected. Whatever credit may be given to
such ridiculous ceremonies as tending in any respect
to the restoration of health, while ignorance and
superstition reigned universally in this country, it
certainly must appear extraordinary to intelligent
persons that any class of the community should now
have recourse to, and faith in, such practices ; but
so it is, that many come from the shires already

THE SACRED LOCH 315

mentioned, and say they are benefited by these
practices. It is, however, to be observed that those
who generally frequent this loch, and who have
found their health improved, on returning home,
are persons afflicted with nervous complaints and
disordered imaginations, to whose health a journey
of forty or sixty miles, a plunge into the loch, and
the healthful air of our hills and glens may con-
tribute all the improvement with which they are
generally so much pleased."

One of the three charm-stones purported to have
been thrown into Loch mo Nair was said to have
come into the possession of the Lord Reay, who
gave it to an ancestor of Mr. Eric Ross, Golspie,
who owned it in 1900, and whose notes thereanent
are as follow : l

The WitcJis Stone. — " . . . This stone, which had
been in possession of the Reay family for genera-
tions, was highly esteemed by the country people,
who came from all parts of Sutherland, when their
cattle fell ill, for a small bottle of water, in which
the stone had first been immersed. This water was
faithfully administered to the ailing animals. Lord
Reay was so bothered by these visitors that he gave
the stone to my father, who in his turn was often
called upon for the magical water. My father
bequeathed the stone to my elder brother, who
dying about three years ago, the ancient stone
became my property. I remember well in my
young days the people coming for the water, and
their anxious faces as they watched the stone being
put into the bowl of water. It is to be regretted that

1 Proceedings of Soc. of Antiquaries ; Scotland, 14th May, 1900.

316 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

no particulars of the early history of the stone are
known, except the fact that it was once the property
of a notorious witch. History is silent also regard-
ing the recovery of the stone from Loch Mon-aar,1
how it came into the possession of the Reay family,
and the fate of its fellow-stones. The stone was
never used, except for the purpose already men-
tioned. If the stone dried quickly after being taken
out of the water, the sick animal would get well
rapidly ; but if slowly, it would be a lingering re-
covery : so the poor people believed. What the
stone was used for in ancient times it is impossible
to know. The loch, however, into which the witch-
woman threw the precious stones was ever after-
wards regarded as a place of healing ; and hundreds
of people have been known to journey from far to
the loch for the sake of plunging into its dark
waters to heal some real or imaginary ills. The
plunge had to be taken at midnight and the bather
out of sight of the loch before the sun rose and
shone upon its waters, or else the charm would
fail to work."

By reason of the honorific prefix Mo-, one looks,
in the first place, for the saint's name ; as the name
of St. Munn, Munda, Gadhelic Munnu, comes from
Mo-Fhindu, so Mo-N-Aar may come from Mo-
Fhinn-Bharr, Findbarr or St. Barr, venerated in
Sutherland, and whose name occurs in Kilmorack,
i.e. Cill-Mo-Bharr-6g, * the church of my little Barr '
(with the diminutive of endearment), and also in
Barra. The Rev. A. Gunn has already made this

1 Mr. Ross's spelling indicates the true pronunciation, viz. d long,
and bearing the chief stress.

THE SACRED LOCH 317

feasible suggestion as to the loch name, but I cannot
associate therewith the parish name Farr, with its
short a and thin r (i.e. FaY), which again seems of
like origin with the place-name Far in Inverness-
shire, and both apparently Pictish.

But in his legend the St. Bairre of Cork has
annexed some of the attributes of a marine deity ;
he rides on St. Davids horse across the Irish Sea,
and, as Mr. Plummer1 points out, his full name Find-
bharr 'white-crest' points in the same direction.

My suspicion is that the saint's name led to
association with the ancient goddess Nair, some-
times termed a bain-leanndn, or female sprite. The
Adventures of Crimthann Nia JVair is among the
list of the primary tales in the Book of Leinster, and
this shows that in the nth century it was current
among the people. She is the goddess of the
Wonderland, in the same category as Fand, who
leaves Manannan her spouse, an immortal god, from
her love for Cuchulain, like Niam, the bride of Oisin,
and like the lady who wooed Connla Ruadh, son of
Conn of The Hundred Battles, — Conn Cetchathach,
— to the Sidh. Crimhthann Nia Nair, Crimh-
thann, husband or hero of Nair, figures as a high
king in Ireland at the dawn of the Christian era,
was a son of Lugaid Sriabderg, Lugaid of the red-
stripes or circlets. This Lugaid was the son of

1 Vitae Sanctorwn Hibemiae^ vol. i. p. xxxi. St. Barr begged St.
David for the loan of his horse that he might make his journey the
quicker. Quo concesso, ac benedictione optenta, equum ascendit, et
sic super eum mare confidenter [intrauit], et usque ad Hiberniam
peruenit. Equum vero prefatum in seruicio fratrum secum retinuit.
Set in memoria miraculi discipuli eius fecerunt equum eneum, qui
usque hodie apud Corkagiam manet. lb. 69 n.

318 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

three brothers, Bress, Nar and Lothur ; their sister
Clothru was his mother.

Lugaid was united to Clothru, who thus in pre-
Christian legend was both his wife and mother,

The legend of Crimthann Nia Nair (i.e. C. hero of
Nair) is summarised in the tract known as Flathiusa
h-Erenn} The goddess Nair brought him to an
over-sea land, where he abode for what seemed a
month and a half. A longing seized him to return,
and he brought back a chariot entirely wrought of
gold ; a chess-board of gold ornamented with three
hundred precious stones ; a sword with serpents
chased in gold ; a shield with silver reliefs ; a spear
that caused mortal wounds ; a sling of unfailing cast,
two dogs bound by a silver leash valued at three
hundred bondmaids, — things, in short, which point
to riches acquired by a journey to the happy Other-
World over sea. Through a fall from his horse he
found his death, 'six weeks after his return to
Ireland,' — the usual fate of the hero who returns
among mortals from a visit to the land of the
Immortals, the Ever- Young.

The diminutive form of the name Nart Nair, is
Narag, a name I recollect applied to a woman who
was 'touched* with frenzy, and I infer that this
other-world being Nair was a being like Fann, who
wrought the sickness of Cuchulainn, and of whom it
is specially said that she made men mad. In this
aspect of her being she was a goddess of death, whom
sick men would seek to propitiate as they longed for
a new life and happiness. Death and Night are

1 Book of Leinster, p. 23, col. 2, lines 2-8 ; Book of Lecan, fol. 295,
v. col. 2. Cf. Keating's History, ed. 181 r, pp. 408-9.

THE SACRED LOCH

319

closely associated in primitive myth. The rites
at Loch mo Nair, which invariably took place at
night, were to propitiate Death, the spirit of disease,
of evil, of night with terrors dire. This would not
exclude a trace of initiative magic ; as the sun dies
in the ocean at night and returns renewed, so by
imitating his bathing and death in the waters a
similar renewal of life might be looked for ; nay, if
by imitative magic the bather returned ere the sun
arose he procured virtue anew. The diving into the
lake I take to be a remnant of an Other-World
journey across sea, such as meets us in the Book of
Leinster tale about Loegaire Liban, where the scene
is laid at En-loch or the Lake of Birds. There the
unknown warrior from Mag Mell, the Happy Land,
the joyous home of the dead, seeks mortal aid, and
having declared the glories of that land, he went
back into the lake. Thereafter Loegaire dived down
into the lake, and fifty warriors followed him. Late/
on he returns to bid his father Crimthann Cass fare-
well. He would not be touched : "Come not nigh
us," he cried ; " we are but come to bid you farewell,"
and he sang of the marvels of his new abode to his
father :

What a marvel it is, O Crimthann Cass !

I was master of the blue sword.

One night of the night of the gods !

I would not exchange for all thy kingdom.1

The going at night into the lake then was some form
of obeisance to the Other- World past. The bathing
in Loch mo Nair, in the waters sacred to the goddess,

1 D'Arbois de Jubainville's Irish Mythological Cycle, trans, by Best,
p. 204.

320 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

was like undertaking a visit to the Land of the Dead,
the gods' land.

The dead could cure, it may have been thought.
O'Davoren's Glossary gives a word Nar as meaning
noble (nasal), good (maith), holy, pure, which Stokes
equates with Greek vrtyco, 'to be sober, pure.' But
the goddess Nair in character reminds of the Greek
Nqpew, l a water-nymph, Nereid.'

Other well-cures of special significance were
resorted to. At Strath-fillan in Pennant's x time it is
observed that the saint "is pleased to take under
his protection the disordered in mind ; and works
wonderful cures, say his votaries, even to this day.
The unhappy lunatics are brought here by their
friends, who first perform the ceremony of the
Deasil, thrice round a neighbouring cairn ; after-
wards offer on it their rags, or a little bunch of heath
tied with worsted ; then thrice immerge the patient
in a holy pool of the river, a second Bethesda ; and,
to conclude, leave him fast bound the whole night in
the neighbouring chapel. If in the morning he is
found loose, the saint is supposed to be propitious ;
for if he continues in bonds, his cure remains doubt-
ful ; but it often happens that death proves the angel
that releases the afflicted, before the morrow, from all
the troubles of this life." Near hand there formerly
lived an old woman of the name Dewar, who was cus-
todian of St. F Maris /aire Ae or mallet,2 which was used
to stir the sacred waters, if not to impart them virtues.

1 Tour, pt. ii. 15.

2 Originally, the mallet for bruising barley, but in later ages used for
stirring the pool. St. Fillan's relics further embrace his bell, which
was put over the patients in the morning ; his Quigerach ; his belt
or girdle. Cf. Brigit's girdle {Relig. Songs of Connaught, ii. 27).

THE SACRED WELL 321

The Laird of Macfarlane tells of a chapel in Appin
called Craikwherreellan, as he spells it, where "there
are springs of fresh water, and the opinion of the
wholesomeness of the water draweth many people
thither upon St. Patrick's Day yearlie in hopes of
health from disease by drinking thereof ; the town or
village of Ardnacloich is hard by, renowned for a
well also, where, they allege, if a person diseased go,
if he be to die he shall find a dead worm therein or
a quick one if health be to follow."

St. Mary's Well at Culloden was visited on the
first Sunday of May ; about a dozen years ago or so
it was calculated that about two thousand persons
made the pilgrimage. Its waters were held to have
the power of granting under certain conditions the
wish of the devotee. Old men are known to have
held that in their early days its waters had distinct
healing powers. It was believed that at mid-night
on the first of May its waters turned into wine for a
short time. A visitor some years ago wrote regard-
ing the ritual :

" At any rate two thousand people visited it
last Sunday, and the observer might extract, as
his temperament led him, either ridicule or much
food for thought in noting with how much apparent
earnestness — one could almost say seriousness — the
appointed rites were performed by the majority of
the visitors. The procedure to be gone through is
this : A draught of the water is taken, the drinker
at the same time registering a wish or desire for
success in some form or another throughout the
coming year. To facilitate the wish a coin of small
value is usually dropped into the water. Yet the

322 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

rite is not altogether completed. The worshipper
who intends to be thorough ties a piece of cloth —
nearly always taken to the well for that particular
purpose — to an adjoining tree as a symbol of the
belief that thereby his cares and troubles for a year
at least are left behind him. How small a price to
pay for so great a boon !

SOME OF THE DEVOTEKS.

Here come a group of happy boys, all of whom
drink solemnly of the water, no doubt wishes corre-
sponding with their ages and experiences being the
while registered. But, alas ! the ceremony is left in
some degree uncompleted, for on examination it is
found that no member of the group possesses a
solitary copper. This part of the rule is thereupon
brushed aside. But the tying of pieces of cloth on
the tree is strictly observed, for, besides costing
nothing, it gives each boy an opportunity of indulg-
ing in a little tree-climbing, the desire for which is
doubtless inherited from his pre-historic ancestors ;
and soon variously-coloured pieces of cloth are float-
ing gaily on the breeze. Here is another and much
more interesting arrival — a young man and a pretty
girl. The girl drops a coin into the well, glancing
shyly at her companion's face the while. ..."

The same rites as at Loch mo Nair were observed
at the same time of the year at St. John's Loch,
Dunnet, and at St. Trostan's Loch, Papa Westray.
Pagan cultus and Christian superstition were here
blended.

The well at Loch Maree, called after St. Mael
Rubha of Abercrossan, has been often written about.

THE SACRED WELL 323

Most interesting of all is Pennant's description (1772)
of ' the favoured isle of the saint ' : " In the midst is
a circular dike of stones, with a regular narrow
entrance ; the inner part has been used for ages as a
burial place, and is still in use. I suspect the dike
to have been originally Druidical and that the ancient
superstition of Paganism had been taken up by the
saint as the readiest method of making a conquest
over the minds of the inhabitants. A stump of a
tree is shown as an altar, probably the memorial of
one of stone ; but the curiosity of the place is the
well of the saint ; of power unspeakable in cases of
lunacy. The patient is brought into the sacred
island, is made to kneel before the altar, where his
attendants leave an offering in money, he is then
brought to the well, and sips some of the holy water,
a second offering is made ; that done, he is thrice
dipped in the lake ; and the same operation is
repeated every day for some weeks ; and it often
happens, by natural causes, the patient receives
relief, of which the saint receives the credit. I must
add that the visitants draw from the state of the well
an omen of the disposition of St. Maree ; if his well
is full, they suppose he will be propitious ; if not,
they proceed in their operations with .fears and
doubts ; but let the event be what it will, he is held
in high esteem ; the common oath of the country is
by his name ; if a traveller passes by any of his
resting places, they never neglect to leave an offer-
ing ; but the saint is so moderate as not to put him
to any expense, a stone, a stick, a bit of rag contents
him."

Sacred wells are met with in all countries where a

324 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Celtic speech has been spoken. I need not linger
over the Holy Wells of Cornwall,1 but pass at once
to a great shrine of present-day repute in Wales.
It is a special account contributed to The Baptist of
November 23, 1905, by Mr. W. Harris of Oxford ;
I may be allowed to quote it in full, as it is I
believe quite reliable, and of special interest in this
connection :

"It was our privilege a few days ago to pay a
visit to Holywell, North Wales, a place famous
among Roman Catholics for its spring of water
known as St. Winefride's Well, which is supposed
to possess miraculous healing power, and I thought
perhaps an account of what we saw would interest
Baptist readers. ' Traditions ' inform us that some-
where about the twelfth century a wicked youth

2The Cornish Well of St. Keyne has a unique fame. Its water is
gifted with the marvellous property that whoever first drinks of it
after marriage will be ruler in the household. The poet Southey was
so struck with this well when on his visit to Cornwall, that he after-
wards celebrated its virtues in the poem beginning :

A well there is in the west country,
And a clearer one never was seen.
There is not a wife in the west country,
But has heard of the Well of St Keyne.

The conduct of some of these wells is truly unique. Take for instance
the spirited behaviour attributed to the basin which catches the water
as it issues from the spring at St. Nun's Well, Pelynt, near Looe.
Here is the legend : A farmer once wishing to use this basin as a
trough in a pig-sty attempted to move it by means of a team of oxen.
At first it resisted every effort made to dislodge it. At length, how-
ever, he succeeded in dragging it from its place. But just as it was
nearing the top of the hill it burst the chains that were holding it, and
started to roll rapidly down again. Finally, when abreast of the well,
it made a sharp turn and rolled straight in at the entrance, retaking its
old position, where it remains to this day. The oxen then fell dead,
and the farmer was struck both lame and speechless.

THE SACRED WELL 325

made infamous proposals to the maid Winefride,
which she rejected. She was thereupon slain by
him, and the head severed from the body. St.
Beuno, on his way home from the church, discovered
the remains, placed the head to the body, and prayed,
upon which the maiden rose up. Immediately there
sprang a stream of water from the spot where the
head lay, and from that day to this has not ceased
to flow.

" Having arrived at the outer gate (about a half-
hour's good walk from the railway station), upon
payment of an entrance fee of twopence we were
admitted to the outer courtyard, and were directed
to a doorway in the crypt of an ancient church.
Upon entering, we found ourselves in a cold, wet,
vault-like place, in size perhaps eighteen feet square,
in the centre of which is the well, protected by a
strong stone balustrade, octagonal in design, from
the points of which spring eight finely-lined columns
supporting an equally interesting fan-shaped roof.
The water is allowed to accumulate in the well about
three feet deep, and is clear as crystal and icy cold.
It just 'wells' up from the centre of the mud and
stone covered bottom, and is thus forced to the
circumference of the well. Alongside the well is a
baptistery of the usual dimensions, with steps at each
end. A richly moulded flying stone arch separates
the well from the baptistery. The only outlet for
the water is through the latter, and then under the
floor out into a large swimming-bath in the court-
yard, to which we shall have occasion again to refer;
the water passes down to another swimming-bath.
This is under cover, and is called ' the Westminster'

326 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

bath, and to this bath admission can be gained at all
reasonable hours upon payment of the entrance fee
only. The water then passes away to the rear of the
premises, and, by a sluice arrangement, part is con-
ducted to drive a mill of some kind, while the other
part is diverted into St. Winefride's Brewery !

" But to return to the well and its interesting sur-
roundings. Upon first gaining entrance to the crypt,
we could scarcely believe we were in the British
Isles. During the previous month we had scarcely
heard a word of our mother tongue, having toured
to Pwllheli, Carnarvon and the Snowdonian range,
where Welsh is spoken ; now we were surrounded
by a number of Italians of both sexes in their gay
characteristic attire ; while there was also a goodly
number of our own fellow-countrymen and women
speaking with a north-country dialect.

" The walls of the place were well covered with
texts of Scripture appropriately selected ; these were
interspersed with crutches, etc., while in the four
corners and on the floor were piles of crutches and
walking sticks, cork boots, bandages, belts, metallic
and otherwise, bearing unmistakable signs of years
of wear, dirt and dust. Against the wall was fitted
up an altar, upon which rested a large statue of St
Winefride in a richly carved and draped canopy.
We arrived at the wall just at noon, and upon ask-
ing the meaning of the number of people present, we
ascertained that they were pilgrims from various
parts of the world, who had come to a service which
would be held at 12.30. We estimate that there
were four or five hundred people present. Every
available inch of standing room was occupied, and a

THE SACRED WELL 327

large number of pilgrims were promenading round
the bath in the outer courtyard.

" Seeing a Catholic priest among them, I went and
joined myself unto him. He, in reply to my request,
very readily lent me an ear for a few moments' con-
versation. Said I, ' By happy experience I know
that faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ' — here my friend
the priest reverently raised his silk hat and as
reverently bowed his head — ' will tend to the saving
of the soul, but when I look round upon these

crutches and other implements my faith is '

1 Strengthened ?' queried the priest. ' Nay, sir,
rather it is staggered.' 'Then,' said a lady, who
was standing near, ' surely, if you were told that an
old man, a cripple all his life, had bathed here, was
healed, and had gone away, having no further use
for his crutches, you would believe it.' 'I should
believe it,' I replied, ' if I had known the old man
as a cripple, and had known him afterwards as a
sound man.' 'Well,' broke in the young priest,
* I must say, seeing is believing. But,' he added,
'surely all these crutches and sticks should satisfy
any reasonable man of the healing virtue in the
waters of this well, but I admit, if you like, that not
all who bathe are healed, but only those who have
faith in the water/

"As it was on the stroke of 12.30, by mutual
consent we crowded into the crypt for the service,
which opened with a hymn accompanied by a har-
monium. The tune, judging by the way it was
immediately taken up, was well known to all except
perhaps our two selves ; indeed, I do not think I
should be far wrong if I said we were the only

328 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

persons present who were not Catholics, as the
sequence proves. Then followed a remarkable litany,
a copy of which is before me as I write, and from
which I cull a few petitions. After each petition the
response was instantly taken up, and spoken rapidly.

"Priest'. O blessed St. Winefride, — {response) pray
for us ; O glorious Virgin and Martyr, — pray for us ;
O faithful Spouse of Christ, — pray for us ; O sweet
comforter of the afflicted, — pray for us ; O bright
example of Chastity, — pray for us ; O hope and
relief of distressed pilgrims, — pray for us ; That all
non-Catholics be converted to the Holy Catholic
faith, — pray for us.

" Then followed another hymn and an eloquent
address from Psalm cxxi. first verse. The first
part of the sermon was very enjoyable, but as the
preacher proceeded, he somehow took our eyes off the
help coming to us in our need, and sought to fix our
gaze 'upon St. Winefride.'

11 As I ' retrospect ' a little, I can now understand
why the preacher's attention was fixed upon our face.
He evidently saw gathered thereon 'a cloud about
the size of a man's hand.' Another hymn and
prayer brought the service to an end. The care-
taker then in a loud voice requested ' all ladies to
retire, as the men are about to bathe.' The congre-
gation one and all, excepting ourselves, filed past the
priest as he stood at the altar, he presenting a ' relic '
to be kissed, many persons evidently requesting to
be ' touched ' on the shoulder, chest or back. The
relic appeared to be a silver medallion fixed into a
wooden disc with handle, somewhat in shape and
size of a quarter-pound butter print.

THE SACRED WELL 329

"When all, excepting ourselves, had passed out,
the priest took his departure. My companion then
left me, and as I happen to belong to the sterner sex,
and desired to be ' in the know,* I, quite unneces-
sarily, supported one of the pillars already referred
to, while, as the priest had retired, the caretaker
commenced walking rapidly up and down the room
counting his beads and praying at a great speed
after this fashion : * Our Father, which art in
Heaven,' etc.

" I now noticed that some half a dozen men, mostly
of fine physique, had gathered around the baptistery.
Among them was a man with a shrunken leg, a blind
man, and an Italian boy of about five years with
emaciated legs. He was dipped to the waist by an
Italian adult. Each man was evidently carefully
instructed how to act while in the ' bathroom/
Each in turn descended the steps unaided, sub-
merged himself by stooping, raised himself to an
upright position, then three times kissed the flying
arch I have already referred to, which came just about
level with the mouth ; he then left the water, came
and knelt on a certain stone in front of the shrine of
St. Winefride, and again descended into the ice-cold
water. This each man did three times in rapid
succession, without a visible shudder or murmur.
The only sound breaking the stillness was that
caused by the caretaker at his ' prayers ' and beads.
This man was pointed out to me as one who had
been stone blind, had bathed in St. Winefrides
Well and had received his sight. The bathers then
proceeded to the next step — viz., to plunge into the
swimming bath in the open courtyard, round which

330 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

they must wade or swim three times, and it was an
act of great merit and efficacy to dive and kiss a
certain stone in the floor of the well. All the bathers
by some means appeared to be familiar with the spot,
and all seemed desirous of giving the stone the kiss.
But, alas ! while they doubtless could easily drown
in the well, yet ' for love or money ' they could not
dive to the bottom. Then followed ■ skylarking '
unrestrained, in which one man tried by force to put
the other's face into contact with the stone.

"I find I have omitted to mention that at the close
of the sermon a procession of Italian peasants arrived,
bearing lighted candles, banners, etc., headed by a
priest bearing a wreath of hand-made silk flowers,
under a glass dome, the work of the pilgrim band
just arrived and others unable to leave Italy. This
he faithfully promised should ultimately be placed
upon St. Winefride's shrine in their beautiful chapel,
though for the present it would remain upon the
'altar' at the well. During the service I trust we
behaved ourselves with becoming decorum, though
during a brief spell of silence I whispered in my
companion's ear the words of Naaman, * When I
bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord
pardon Thy servant in this thing.'

" In the congregation was a beautiful girl of some
thirteen summers, stretched upon a spinal carriage,
and certainly, if the human face indicates the condi-
tion of the heart spiritually, that girl ' was not far
from the Kingdom.' We were told that she had
been brought to Holywell the day previous to see if
the water would heal her of spinal disease ; that she
had been 'dipped' once, and it was hoped that

THE SACRED WELL 331

'after one or more dips she would be better.' Our
earnest prayer was that this might be so. Before
retiring, the priest came to her carriage and pre-
sented the relic to her lips. She at the same time
raised a suspended wrist-charm to be touched. This
she again most affectionately kissed.

." Thus came to an end this never-to-be-forgotten
service. Alas, alas ! through lack of faith, or other
cause, the blind man did not receive his sight, the
lame man was not able to leave his cork boot behind,
the skin on the legs of the child did not ' become
like the flesh of a little child/ so neither was faith
found in him. Then remembered I the words of the
priest, uttered before the service, ' Not all who
bathe are healed, but only those who have faith in
the water.' "

At Killin, Perthshire, two springs, Creideag
Bheg and Creideag Mhor, had curative qualities.1
Children were dipped in the Lady of Lawers' Well
at Beltane, and sprinkled when the sun was visible.2
Immersion in the Dochart was resorted to for
insanity.3

Of a parallel nature, if on another plane, are the
rites associated with St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough
Derg. A saint specially connected with the spot is
St. Dabheoc,4 who is credited with having had a
vision there ere he died. It is this saint who gives
his name to the sacred well in Gigha, Argyll, known
as Tobar Da Bheathag or Tobar ath Bheathag, but

1 Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness, 26, 48.

2 lb. 25, 131. 3 lb. 26, 145.

4 Shane Leslie's Lough Derg in Ulster (Maunsel & Co., 1909); T.
Wright's St. Patricks Purgatory, 1844 ; P. de Fe*lice, 12 Autre
Monde : Le Purgatoire de Saint Patrice, Paris, 1906.

332 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

correctly written Tobar Dha Bheoc, with the accent
on the bhe (Bhe-oc). The Gigha well since the
time of the Druids has been credited with special
virtues : 1 if a stone is taken out of it a great gale of
east wind is aroused, which was taken advantage of
when the islanders were given to smuggling, so that
excisemen were kept from the island. Not many-
years ago a man from the south end went to the
well (which is at the north end) purposing to take a
stone out of it, and have his revenge on the captain
of a vessel then anchored on the Kintyre side of the
Sound. He returned, however, without fulfilling
his purpose, having remembered just in time that a
nephew of his was in another vessel in the vicinity.
Da Bheoc is an early sixth century saint commemo-
rated in Gorman's Martyrology under January i.
Loch Derg was of old Loch Geirc or Geirg, and
was noted for its cave, visited by Knight Owen in
the Middle Ages for the purpose of washing off his
guilt. Legend has it that St. Patrick, while preach-
ing to the pagans, miraculously opened up the place
of punishment, with its four fields guarded by fire,
ice, serpents, where souls are in torment ; its narrow
bridge, its wall bright as glass, its golden gate, its
Garden of Eden, where are the happy souls who
had expiated their sins, and were waiting to be

1 'Buaidhean sonruichte' ; cf. Gordon Cumming's In the Hebrides and
Martin's Western Isles as to the round bluish stone always moist on
the altar of Fladda's Chapel in the island of Fladdahuan : windbound
fishermen walked sunways round the chapel and then poured water
on the stone, whereupon a powerful breeze was sure to spring up. In
Lewis and Man wind might be sold to mariners : it was enclosed in
three knots ; undoing the first brought a moderate wind, the second
half a gale, the third a hurricane.

THE SACRED CAVE 333

received into the Celestial Paradise. Ere entering,
the penitent had to pass a probation of fifteen days
in prayer and fasting ; on the sixteenth, having
received the sacrament, he was led in solemn pro-
cession to the gate, which, after the penitent had
entered, was locked, and not opened till the follow-
ing day. In 1497, on the representation of a dis-
appointed Dutch monk, who saw no visions, the
cave was destroyed by authority of the Pope as not
being the Purgatory which St. Patrick obtained
from God, but the pilgrimages have never ceased,
and are in vogue from 1st June to 15th August,
despite a second destruction in 1632, and an inter-
dict in 1704. Through the work of Henry of
Saltrey, a Benedictine of the middle of the twelfth
century, the legend spread all over Europe, and
was later dramatised by Calderon. It is most likely
that long before St. Patrick's day this island was
associated with burial or with death and visions of
the entry into the other world, partly to be inferred
from island names like H-irt, i.e. Death, the
Gadhelic name for St. Kilda ; and from Rocabi and
the Green Island of Highland legend, the Caer Is
of Brittany, and other sources, such as the English
versions descriptive of the water and of the bridge
of St. Patrick's Purgatory itself:

. . . they come to a great wattere
Broode and blakke as any pyke [pitch],
Sowles were theryn mony and thykke;
And also develes on eche a syde
As thykke as flowres yn someres tyde.
The water stonke fowle therto
And dede the soles mykylle woo [much woo].

334 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

Over the water a brygge there was,
Forsothe kenere then ony glasse ;
Hyt was narowe and hit was hyge
Onethe that other ende he syge.

This last is the Brig o' Dread, and like the Bridge
Cinvat of the Avesta and the Bridge Sirat of Islam.
The Middle Ages lived in contemplation of the
other world, and had many visions of a Divine
Comedy long before Dante gave them eternal
literary consummation. In the Vision-literature, of
which much is due to the Celt, the Vision itself, by
the aid of Faith, helped to cleanse the soul. Terror
to a certain extent purified. There was a further
basis in practices somewhat similar to the rites of
incubation which still take place in Tenos, in
Greece ; and of old the temple-sleep x in the cult
of Asklepios at Epidaurus, where suppliants ap-
proached the god by sacrifices and rites likely to
win his favour, and lay down to sleep awaiting the
divine visitation. All such rites had healing and
revelation for their end.

(d) Folk- Medicine. Only things significant in
virtue of their magic or by reason of their being
credited in belief with healing power remain to be
considered. Cures wrought by substances of ascer-
tained physical properties must be set aside here for
lack of space, forerunners though they be in some
instances of later science.2 Whatever is outside of

1 Cf. Mary Hamilton, Incubation, or The Cure of Disease in Pagan
Temples and Christian Churches (Henderson & Son, St. Andrews,
1906).

2 v. Dr. Masson on 'Popular Domestic Medicine' in Trans. Gael. Soc.
Inverness, vol. xiv.; Dr. Clerk's ■ Notes on Ancient Gaelic Medicine' in
Trans, of Gaelic Soc. of Glasgow, vol. i. ; The Caledonian Medical

FOLK-MEDICINE 335

the usual produces a certain counter-shock on the
soul or soul-body : this psychological fact is not
forgotten in folk-medicine. If connected with what
is held to be holy, the mental-contact itself suffices,
although this is strengthened by visible means. In
1849 the people of Carrick were in the habit of
carrying away from the churchyard portions of the
clay of a priest's grave and using it as a cure for
several diseases, and they also boiled the clay from
the grave of Father O'Connor with milk, and
drank it.1

Things connected with or named after a priest's
belongings, such as a biretta {currackd sagairt) or a
processional canopy [pzcdall beannacti), are used in
love-charms, whereby a girl can magically attach a
lover. A sacred girdle is sometimes still worn by
pious women who feel they are soon to add to the
number of the faithful. This is to ' sain ■ the ex-
pected child as well as the mother from all harm,
and to attach all good spiritual powers on her side.
Parallel is the magic or wizard belt of St. Fillan
(siauchrios Fhaolain2), whereby MacUalraig of
Lianachan, Lochaber, tied the Glaistig or water-

fournal, July 1897, January 1898, April and July 1902, October 1904,
January-April 1910, has papers by Dr. Gillies, Dr. Mackay, Dr. Mac-
lagan, and by Professor Mackinnon on Gaelic Medical MSS., which
in substance follow known Latin works of the Middle Ages, and are
on a par with the 'science' of their day. In Pennant's Tour there
are interesting remarks on The Diseases of the Highlands.

Homme's Folk- Lore as an Historical Science, p. 199, quoting
Wilde's Beauties of the Boyne, 45 ; Croker's Researches in the South
of Ireland, 170 ; Rev. Celt. v. 358.

2Domhnull Mac-Mhuirich, An Duanaire, Dun-^idinn, 1868, pp.
123-126. A fairly literal rendering is given in J. G. Campbell's Super-
stitions of the Scottish Highlands (MacLehose), p. 169.

336 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

nymph in front of him on his horse, and swore that
he would not let her go until he showed her before
men. In return for her release she promised to
enrich him with cattle and with house ; on fulfilling
each stipulation he let the siren (an t-suire) go free,
and when parting with her he put the red-hot
coulter into her crooked fist, and then she laid on
him the curse of the Fairy- Host and of the Goblins,
her wishes being that his race might "grow as the
rushes, wither like the ferns, turn grey in childhood,
die at the zenith of strength." Her imprecation fell
short of wishing that a son might not take his
fathers place.

If sacred human things had such 'saining' power,
how much more semi-sacred creatures which brought
one in contact with the substance of the god !
Epilepsy was held to be curable as follows : " A live
snake was caught and placed in a bottle, which was
then filled with pure water and corked. After
standing for a short time, the infusion was given to
the patient, who was kept ignorant of the nature of
the drug."1 To check whooping-cough it was recom-
mended to hold a live frog over the sufferer's mouth.
What is unusual has magic virtue : King's evil or
scrofula could be cured if water were poured into a
basin and applied by the seventh son in a family of
nine — a daughter being the eldest and a daughter
being the youngest, with seven sons between. Also
by the seventh son of a seventh son, although the
person concerned is unconscious of the secret of his
healing gift. Water drunk from a live-horn (aciharc

1 Rev. Kenneth Macdonald, Social and Religious Life in the
Highlands, p. 29.

FOLK-MEDICINE 337

bheb), or from a spoon or cup made out of horn
taken from off a live animal, had virtue in curing
whooping-cough. Another remedy was mare's milk
from an aspen spoon. Fasting-spittle used at early
dawn, as also swine's blood, was used to cure warts,
the right hand being placed on the earth under the
left foot (or the reverse, as the case might need) in
name of the Trinity at the time of waning of the
moon. Children born feet first were held to cure
epilepsy, and certain charms were used to transfer
the fits from day to night. Against epilepsy a black
cock without a white feather was taken and buried
where the patient had the first fit. A special modifi-
cation was " the taking of the parings of the nails of
the fingers and toes, binding them up with hemp,
with a sixpence in a piece of paper, on which was
written the name of the Father, the Son and the
Holy Ghost. The parcel was then taken, tied
under^ the wing of a black cock, and buried in a
hole dug at the spot where the first fit occurred, by
the oldest God-fearing man of the district, who must
watch and pray all night by the fire, which must not
be let out. Another very universal remedy was
drinking water out of the skull of a suicide at
dawn." l Serpent-bite was cured by a decoction of
water wherein a serpent's head had been boiled. In
Tiree " water taken from the crest of nine waves,
and in which nine stones had been boiled, was an
infallible cure for jaundice. The shirt of the
patient, after being dipped in this magic infusion,
is put on wet."2

1 Dr. Aitken in Trans. Gael. Soc. Inverness, 14, 309.

2 Folk- Lore Journal, i. 167.

338 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

On the west side of the same island there is a
rock with a hole in it, through which children are
passed when suffering from whooping-cough or
other complaints.1 M On the point of Oa, Islay,
there is a small arch formed in a huge boulder,
which had been resorted to by invalids for ages.
Any person who passed through it was supposed to
have left his malady behind him, whatever it was.
The transit was a cure for all diseases. Within the
last twenty years a poor man carried his sickly wife
on his back for miles to give her the benefit of the
charm.

One fact to be observed was that the disease
of the last person healed would stick to the
next passing through it unless he got a substi-
tute to pass before him. Probably a valuable
animal of the clean kind was the original substitute
required, but latterly any living creature was con-
sidered sufficient. An old worn-out dog was sup-
posed to be as good as a first-class ram."2 The
water-vole (labhalan), referred to in Rob Donn, is
mentioned also by Pennant:3 "The country-people
have a notion that it is noxious to cattle : they
preserve the skin, and as a cure for their sick beasts
give them the water in which it has been dipt. I
believe it to be the same animal which in Suther-
land is called the Water- Mole." The mole itself is
held to be an omen of death if it is perceived as
making its runs in the direction of the foundation of

1 Folk- Lore Journal, vol. i. p. 167.

2 Rev. K. Macdonald, op. cit. p. 35.

3 Tour, i. 175. Possibly an fhadhbh-alan ; alan being a Pictish
word, root as in Alnwick, the river-name Alaunos of Ptolemy.

FOLK-MEDICINE 339

a dwelling. The cure may be a sort of counter-
magic, just as an ointment from snakes' tongue was
once used as an antidote to snake-bite, and in
England the herb ' adder's tongue ' (pphioglossum
vulgatum) ; in the south they nailed to the byre-
door and to field-gates adder-stones, saucer-shaped
pieces of hard blue marl, rounded and perforated in
the centre by the action of water, which was pro-
bably the origin of the ovum anguinum of the Gauls,
the serpent's egg so phantastically described by
Pliny.

Goats especially were held to be proof against
adders, and the minister of Kirkmichael, Banff,
in 1794, quotes1 a Gadhelic saying which implies
that the goat eats the serpent or adder : cleas
na goibhr ag itheadh na nathrach, i.e. ' like the
goat eating the adder or serpent/ Red woollen
thread which has been ■ sained ' (snaithlein) has
various virtues : in the shape of a cross it may be
tied to cows' tails or put underneath the milk-pans
or over the byre-door to counteract the evil eye ;
bound on the hand, if one has sprained a vein, it is
held to be a blessed remedy, and termed sgochadh-
feithe, i.e. a magical ' incision of the vein.' In some
districts the magic thread is thrice passed over a
horn spoon ; the ends of the thread are placed
together, and the spoon is thrice passed round the
crook, and the sufferer's disease is rightly named or
diagnosed whenever the thread stays on. If one
sprains one's foot a good remedy is to take the
crook full of soot, and make the sign of the cross
over the aching part ; the chimney-crook is ascribed

1 Old Statistical Account of Scotland,

34Q THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

great virtue. Equally so is the magical operation
of turning the heart in lead (cridhe-luadhainri) on
behalf of a person suffering from heart disease.
The patient may be resident far away in another
glen, but doubtless has some knowledge that a good
friend is 'turning his heart.' The lead is molten
and poured through an iron key taken from the
outer door into a bucket full of cold water. The
state of the heart is diagnosed from the formations
made by the liquid lead falling into the water.
Another code requires the patient to be present, and
to kneel near the fire : a sieve is placed on the
head, and in the sieve is put a bowl full of water ;
into this bowl molten lead is poured through iron
(the finger-hole of scissors suffices). One of the
dropping pieces of lead is thought to take the rough
shape of a heart, and the lead has to be melted over
and over until a smooth or ■ whole heart ' is pro-
duced with no hole in it, whereupon the patient may
rest assured that his heart is whole.1 In the ritual
of cow-healing and of turning the evil eye off
children, lustral water, literally silver-water (burn
airgid), water which has been blessed in the Triune
Name and has had silver coins cast into it, is given
to cow or child as the case may be ; a portion must
be drunk by the ailing, a portion sprinkled over
them, and the remainder poured over a large stone
that cannot be moved. This stone is a sort of altar.

1For lead-turning magic, see also Folk-Lore, Sept. 1893, p. 361.
Divination by symbolic burial was resorted to : parents were wont to
dig two adjacent graves beside a lake in the parish of Reay in
Caithness, and there to lay their distempered children in the interval
to ascertain the probability of their recovery from whooping-cough.
(Brand's Description of Orkney t p. 154).

FOLK-MEDICINE: RETROSPECT 341

The evil cannot go further ; it is thought to have
passed into the stone. If cracks appear, the saying
is applicable : envy will split the stone (sgoiltidh
farmad a' chlach) : this is the properly magical part
of the rite ; the religious part is the careful obser-
vance of the earlier portion of the ritual, and the
trusting spirit in which one goes about lifting the
water, blessing it and giving it to the sufferer.
Similarly, when rags are placed at wells or on trees
and bushes near hand, the real idea is not that of
transferring the disease to the tree or bush, but of
taking the spirit of the place, either of the well or
of the tree, to witness, in evidence of having done
one's own part : the deity may then be trusted to do
his. What Carleton, in his Traits and Stories of
the Irish Peasantry, puts into the mouth of one
of his characters is apposite: "To St. Columbkill I
offer up this button, a bit o' the waistband o' my
own breeches, an' a taste o' my wife's petticoat, in
remembrance of us havin' made this holy station ;
an' may they rise up in glory to prove it for
us in the last day ! ' In a similar spirit, if on a
different plane, is the cry of the religious : God is
my rock.

Man in his inner life is opposed to negligence
of those rites which are realised as pertaining to
his economic and social welfare in the highest and
widest sphere ; he in this spirit is strengthened
to endure the further burdens of his pilgrimage.

Evidence of his magic-compelling belief in his
spiritual power is seen in the old Irish custom of
fasting in order to obtain justice or legal redress, to
injure an enemy, to obtain a request as if by magic

342 THE EARTHLY JOURNEY

force ; 1 to ward off a plague.2 The rite has its
parallel in the sitting dharna of the Hindoos. The
explanation is that as eating keeps the body in life
so fasting is a feigning of death ; the dead-body does
not eat. The spirit of Eoghan of Lochbuy cannot
rest, for the warrior fell fasting.3 Fasting makes a
man more accessible to magic power whereby he
may get his wish, just as it renders the body open to
magical transformations ; fasting elevates one on a
par with the dead who eat not. Thus a fasting man
may get his ' wish/ which becomes equal to an
imprecation, which has magic-compelling power
according to the Highland proverb.4 That request
or ' entreaty ' passes into ' conjuration or exorcism '
is shown by the meaning of geas, Irish gezss, from a
word signifying ' I bid, entreat ' : the magic word is
mighty to place one under a prohibition from doing
a certain act, which is tantamount to an obligation to
doing another thing. The magic-spell (Irish feth
fia : the Highland fdth-fUhe) has power to cause
invisibility. The root is *vet, 'to say/5 Power
centres in the magic word, and this is the justification
of embracing a part of folk-medicine along with
sacrifice. The word makes sacred.

One word in retrospect. Consciously or uncon-
sciously, religious rites have an implied reference to

1v. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 205, for evidence
from the Brehon Laws.

2E. Hull, The Ancient Hymn-Charms of Ireland in Folk-Lore,\\\.^2^.
3 v. p. 297. 4p. 10.

5 Cymric gwedyd, * say ' ; also dywedyd ; old perfect dywatut: gwawd,
1 carmen, eulogy, poem ' ; gwawdiaeth, l sarcasm.' From the ablaut
*vat comes the Gadhelic fath ; ferba-fath, 'words of magic' {Rev.
Celt. xx. 146). r

FOLK-MEDICINE: RETROSPECT 343

the supra-sensible ; the motives of religion are mani-
fold, and are inclusive (1) of the power of the word,
(2) of the unseen objects of fear or faith which on
the lower plane may be simply demons, (3) of acts
of faith which issue in expiatory offerings. Religion
embraces more than magic. There is felt or implied
that some Power exists outside and beyond the
actual words recited. In charms of the older period
names of deities, such as Goibniu and Diancecht,
occur. By easy transitions, as in the case of the
pre-Christian Brigit, all 1 such deities make way for
Christian saints. The lower rites anticipate the
higher. The Divine Life is to man as man is to
the Divine Life. There is freedom on both sides.
Priority remains with the greater. It is the higher
that gives, it is the lower that gets. Every giving
reveals.

Folk-consciousness thinks in pieces : it gives small
answers to great questions ; it never reveals a sover-
eign content of existence, with its fullness of labour
and sorrow, as well as love and joy. Truth is the
whole. Celtic, like other folk-consciousness, betrays
a longing after messages and signs of the will and
favour of God. Its holy or naomh, Old Irish noib,
has its nearest cognate in the Old Persian naiba,
' beautiful.' Holiness in its spiritual depths and in-
wardness is a product of Christian associations.
Non-Christian folk-consciousness is ' yet without
strength';2 it does not know God as Holy. In
Christianity alone is God seen as giving up Himself
without giving up His Love.

1 Lady Wilde has a spell wherein the three daughters of Fliethas are
invoked against the serpent. 2 Romans, ch. v. 6.

INDEX.

A' Bhean Mhath, 177.

adha, ae, 22.

Affric, 149.

after-birth, 23.

aibhseachadh, 28.

ainm, 18, 19, 20, 58.

aire chlaidh, 3, 52 (an fhaire

chlaidh), 64.
aisling, 9.
anam, 48.
animal-fasting, 101.

baist, 216.

Beannachd na Cuairte, 210.

bear, 230.

Beltane, 260.

bile (tree), 185-190.

bird-man, 230.

birth-token, 74.

blithe-meat, 208.

blood, 29, 31, 32, 34, 220, 277.

blood-covenant, 32, 35, 36.

blood-staunching, 299.

Bodach an Duin, 176.

bonfire, 248.

bonnach bainnse, 251.

boobrie, 134, 135, 145, 154.

Boyne, 149.

breid, 252.

Brian, 66.

Brian Carabine, 235.

bricht, 17.

Brigit, 167.

Briid's bed, 231.

buarach, 296.

bubaire, 144.

bull-feast, 230, 272.

bull-sacrifice, 273.

burial, symbolic, and divination,

340 n.
burn airgid, 26.

Caesar on sacrifice, 288.

Caisean Calluig, 264.

caisean-uchd, 263.

Calluinn a' Bhuilg, 158.

cat, 108, 109, 268.

clach na brataich, 227.

clachan aoraidh, 205.

clachan carraghan, 198.

cloicheir, 71.

cnamhlach, 65.

Coinneach Odhar, 232.

comh-dhalaiche, 227.

copan-cinn, 22.

corp-criadh, 15, 16, 52.

corrachd, 13.

couvade, 59.

cow-healing, 340.

crabhadh, 8, 291.

crane, 156.

Creideag Mhor, 331.

creideamh, 8.

cridhe-luadhainn, 14.

Crithreamh Gorm, An, 271.

cro-codaig, 32.

Crom Cruach, 204, 287.

cronachduinn, 199.

crosadh (forbidding, lit. crossing),

292.
cruentatio, 38.
crystal-gazing, 237.
cuckoo, 80, 90, 225.
currachd sagairt, 335.
dailgneachd, 9.
da-shealladh, 9.
Deae Sequae, 150.
dearbadan De, 79.
Death, expulsion of, 284.
Deiseil, 251.
deo, 46.
Devona, 149.
devoted(in symbolic sacrifice), 26 1.

INDEX

345

Dia, 50.

distaff, power of, 238.

donn, 157.

dreag, 226.

Druid, 221.

Dusii, 73.

earchall, 193, 270.
earic, 247.
eolas, 299.
epilepsy, 266.
erddthe, 214.
Esus, 160.
evil-eye, 25.

facal, 18.

faith-healing, 308.
faoighdhe,1 246.
farmad, 27, 199.
fasting, 297, 342.
fasting-spittle, 337.
fath-fith, 12, 221, 342.
feet-laving, 245.
feille fairc, 217.
fl, 12.

fiosachd, 232.
fire, 2ll} 295.

fire-circumambulation, 248.
fls, 9.

fltheach, 91.
frith, 223.
fuatharlan, 78.

Garland Sunday, 205.

Gaulish sacrifices, 289.

gealbhan (moving light), 225.

gearraidh, 103.

geas, 9, 10, 13, 19, 23, 57, 123, 292,

342.
Geumraich, na, 276.
ghost-bird, 92.
glaim, 221, 226.
gobhlachan, 140.
gonadh, 12.
goose, 121.
Gruagach, 253.
guidhe, 9.
Guorthigern, 278.

Halmadary and Sacrifice, 286.
H-irt, 333.
horn, live-, 336.

horse, 117, 167.

imleag, 23.
immolation, 278.
infant-flesh, 308.
iress, 8, 290.

kirking, 215.

labhalan, 338.

Labhraidh Lore, 197.

Lady of Lawers, 232.

lead-divination, 14.

lead-turning, 340.

leigheas cuairte, 209.

Lia Fail, 199.

liu, 212.

Loch Maree, 322.

Loch mo Nair, 316.

Lochy, 149, 198.

lostey-chainley, 215.

Lough Derg or Geirc, 331.

Lug, 159.

lustration by fire, 209.

magpie (v. pigheid), 167.
Mag Molach, 55, 73, 177, 269.
Mag Slecht, 287.
man in cow-skin, 290.
Manannan's bridle, 306.
manadh, 9, 21, 291.
marca, marcach, 149.
mare, 226.
Mark, King, 193.
marriage by capture, 247.
Mathair mh6r, 24.
menmain, 21.
minn (mionn), 9, 20.
mire Michil, 259.
mole, 338.
Mor Bhan, 306.
More, 118, 119.
mother-affinity, 4, 5.

Nair, 56.
naomh, 51, 343.
Nar, 320.
Narag, 318.
navel-string, 24.
need-fire, 212-213.
Ness, 149.

*A different word, with the same pronunciation, in phrase d f. = 'out of order,
i.e. dilapidated ' (N. Inverness).

346

INDEX

oath by the elements, 21.

6b, 9.

obaidh, 11, 291.

omphalos, 208.

ortha, 9, 11, 291.

Ossian (Oisin), 122, 128.

peallaidh, 176.
pharmakos, 283.
Phynnodderree, 73, 178.
pigheid, 91.
Plreig, 183.
plut, III.
priest-kings, 298.
pruch, 100.
puball beannach, 335.

ram, 271.
re*ite, 245.
religion, 6, 7, 10, 51, 289, 291,

341-2.
religion, multiple motives of, 343.
right, things, 295.
riochd, 107, 221.
rowan, 180.
ruad, 191.

Sabarios, 259.

sacrifice, 10, 269.

sacrifice, psychological essence of,

290.
scapulimantia, 231.
second-sight (or sight of the two

worlds), 243.
serpent, 54, 165, 166, 167, 168,

169, 339.
serpent-bite, 337.
Shony, 255.
sin (cean, cion ; fine ; immorbus ;

peacadh), 299.
slthich, 252.

skull, water from a, 304.
slan treabhaidh, 257.
soot, 245.
soul, 49.

soul-in-weapons, jy.
srannan, 70.
sreot, 21.
St. Bairre, 317.
St. Colum Cille, 280-1, 309.

St. Fillan's fairche, 320.

St. Fillan's girdle, 320, 335.

St. Kentigern, 183.

St. Maolrubha, 275.

St. Mo-Bharr-6g, 316.

St. Mulvay, 254.

St. Nun's Well, 324.

St. Odran (Oran), 280.

St. Patrick's Purgatory, 333.

St. Winefride, 324.

stones, 199.

stones, for raising wind, 332.

Struan, 255-256.

suicide, 303.

suire (siren), 336.

taboo, things, 293.
taghairm, 267.
tairrngearacht, 9.
taisbein, 9.
tannasg, tasc, 184.
tarbh, I33,.I34-
tarmachduinn, 243.
tarmachan De, 79.
tasc, 48.
tathaich, 13, 39.
tearnadh, 23, 301.
teine-De, 220.
Temair, 195.
Tobar Dha Bheoc, 332.
tong, 9, 20.
toradh, 28, 295.
tree worship, 198.
tree-witness, 341.
treith chuileanach, 175.
trom-laighe, 19.
trugeranos, 148.
tuar, 9, 225.

vicarious sacrifice, 285.

water, 217-219.
water-horse, 162.
wedding-day, 248.
whooping-cough, 338.
witch-stones, 308.
wolf, 170.
wooden ladle, 301.
word, 17.
wren, 96.

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